George Washington Carver Program

When I worked as a children's librarian, I would do a program for Black History month about George Washington Carver and the many improvements he made. I also talked about peanuts and we did experiments comparing roasted peanuts (in the shell) with raw peanuts (in the shell).  

After the kids had taken the shells off of a lot of them, I took some of the roasted ones, tossed them into a blender and made peanut butter.  

Then I held a peanut butter tasting contest. I had previously bought a variety of types of peanut butter - 'natural,' famous brands, chunky, and creamy. I then had all the kids come up and taste each one and vote on the one they thought was the best. (if the homemade peanut butter had turned out okay, I would also include that one.) For sanitary reasons, I had bought a box of hundreds of spoons (from Costco) so they could use a spoon to taste, throw it into the trash can, then pick up a clean spoon for the next taste. Talley the votes. Proclaim a winner.  

Then hold a raffle to give out the remaining peanut butter jars plus send the kids home with the extra peanuts.  

Anyone who wanted to grow peanuts went home with some raw peanuts. They would come back later to tell me about how the plant grew.