Jello cells.
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 02:48PM Yesterday, we made ourselves some jello cells. Very fun. Here's how:
1. Consult book. I love this curriculum. We've covered all three books in Level I already (biology, chemistry and physics) but are going back and reviewing them before summer...adding a few more "fun" elements as we review. Here's one of the pages we were working from:
;)
(Here's another source for information and instructions. And here's one where they let the jello set longer and added things on top instead of inside.)
2. Buy assorted candy and jello. (I did this while the boys were at Options this week, to avoid the inevitable begging, lol.) I just snagged a variety of candies from those bulk bins at the grocery store for the most part. If I were to do this again, though, I think I'd brave the begging to involve the boys in this part, too.
;)
3. Make jello. I'd forgotten how easy this is...and how long it seems to take to set. ;) We used two boxes of each color.
4. Feed boys a snack. (See step 5.)
5. Sort candy. While we were waiting (impatiently) for the jello to set at least a bit, we labeled some cupcake tins with the cell parts we were going to represent. Then we sorted the candy we had into the spots according to what seemed to match best. (And, the boys managed to eat some of our microtubules...but, mostly, our supplies remained safe thanks to step 4.)
;)
6. Add cell parts to jello. Though it felt like forever, we finally started adding cell parts after about 1.5 hours. For the animal cell, we made everything up in a gallon size ziplock bag...the plant cell, having a cell wall and all, was in a glass bowl. (If I'd had a more squarish bowl, I'd have used that.)
;)
;)
7. Return to fridge. It was agonizing to the boys, but we then returned everything to the fridge to finish setting. The torture was made better by eating some of the leftover cell parts. ;)
8. Enjoy. So, we tried to eat these for dessert. It was...interesting. Let's just say that there was ample opportunity for discussion about things that dissolve and things that don't and how that changes the consistency and taste of things. :) Yeah. Not really so tasty. But, we had fun "dissecting" our cells. ;)
That was all. I think it was a hit. I heard Micah talking about golgi apparatus randomly and saw him looking through a library book about cells that I picked up earlier this week. I even got Asher to try jello (which, if you know Asher and his tremendously picky eating habits, you know was saying something).
Beyond that, boys are still fully enthusiastic about our "build your own country" project...I found atlases open, the globe out, and various music being examined for "national anthem" contention yesterday. We talked about fresh water availability and access to the ocean as they're narrowing down their locations. They started thinking about what national holidays they'll have. And, Noah's read through the entire book at least a couple times.
Life is good. ;)
Reader Comments (1)
I think I might have to get that science curriculum for us. It looks like a good overview for us. The books from Options are so incredibly dry. I end up doing things piecemeal with them, which is a lot of work for me, lol!