Yeast! Who knew it could be so much fun?

Takayiyo has been begging to make bread for 2 weeks. It started out like many things with the phrase "I know how to do it!" (You may remember when he discovered that he "knew" how to make life.) So it began, 2 weeks of "You just mix flour, salt & water!". So we made a quick trip to the store for a few supplies and began our journey of discovery. We began our journey quite simply by putting some yeast into a bowl and looking at it. We swirled it, poured it from one bowl to another and generally played with it until Taka was ready to move on. Next we read up on Yeast and what it is. We found a really nice explanation on Fine Cooking. We learned that Yeast is a single-celled fungi - they are LIVING! How cool?!?!?!?!? We also learned that they produce carbon dioxide and alcohol. Taka' translated that to "I have a GREAT IDEA! We can blow thing up with YEAST!!!!" You should have seen the excitement... Then we did a few "experiments" and baked some really yummy bread. We did 2 experiments by combining water, yeast and sugar in containers (bowl with lit and bottle with balloon). The lid on the container didn't blow up as Taka would have liked. However the balloon did begin to fill up as you can see below. In the end we had a great time learning about yeast, how it works and what it can do, and eating yummy home made bread.