An ExCELLent Learning Experience

Rhonda at Living Water Christian Academy is doing a Human Body Unit with her kids. She did this great project with her kids last week. As I am also doing a Human Body Unit with my kids right now, I thought it perfect timing to also do this project.
Jell-O Cells -- We made lemon Jell-O; put it in plastic baggies along with candies to represent all the elements of an animal cell. I worked with each kid individually as each one assembled their cell. As they put each component into their bag, we discussed the job each part has in the cell.
A few notes

• Use light colored Jell-O like lemon.
• Take pictures right away, the candies will start to dissolve and then everything turns orange.
• Eat your cells right away, once the candy is dissolved it does not taste very good according to my kids who were greatly disappointed the next day when they tried to eat them.

If you want to know what we used, here is our list (I used what we had on hand and what we found at the corner store. I set everything out on butcher paper so the kids could easily see what they needed and what it represented.

• cell membrane - plastic bag
• cytoplasm - Jell-O with only half the cold water called for chilled until mostly set.
• centrosome - Lemon Head
  
• golgi body - red vine
• lysosome - orange sprees
  
• ribosome - red sprinkles
• mitochondria - canned mandarin slices
• vacuole - green jelly beans
• nucleus -purple gobstopers
• smooth endoplasmic reticulum - gummy worms
• rough endoplasmic reticulum - rip rolls (like fruit by the foot)