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Recipe for a Moon
New activity
Patrons use common food items to model the interiors of the Moon and Earth.
Open Activity
How-to Video
Teacher's Guide
Provides classroom connections, key concepts, connections to science standards, and additional resources.
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Rating
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Participants Enjoyed the ActivityParticipants Learned from This ActivityActivity Instructions Were Clear and Easy to FollowWould Recommend
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Reviews
Fun and messy!
Having the how-to video was a big help for facilitating. The group 4 adults and 8 kids (preschooler to tween) enjoyed the messiness of the project. Their a-ha! moment really came when they cut open their model...and, of course, it was delicious. We expanded the program by talking about elements and seismology. All of the participants were surprised to learn that the world's deepest hole is a "mere" 7 miles deep. Would definitely recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwiiOjyfvAU
Edible earth and moon!
We did this at an outreach program with the after school kids at the local elementary school. They really enjoyed this program and were pretty excited to learn that the moon had layers just like the earth. Cutting the models open to see they layers was a neat effect that they loved! Comparing the sizes of the two models helped as well. Despite that we drove home the point that kids should not lick their fingers or eat the model ahead of time . . .some still did! Which is why I am glad I opted to have them each build their own instead of working in groups on one model. However, that came to not be as clever when some of them did manage to eat most of their models and the sugar rush took over, lol! I recommend purchasing the Walmart "Great Value" store brand of rice krispy treats if you can find them for this - they are cheaper and larger, so you can alter the recipe to use four instead of five rice krispy treats.
Recipe for a Moon
Our library hosted this program for a small group. The Moon was super easy to make, for smaller children the rice krispies were harder to mold, you defiantly need volunteers for this activity or parent participation. The earth was a little more difficult only because our sprinkles didn't want to stick to the earth! Perhaps use blue and green fruit by the foot type materials instead?
Besides that, our group had a great time learning about all the parts of the moon and earth, some of our kids were surprised that the moon was more than just a big rock!
We would recommend this activity at your library.
Recipie for a non-edible moon
We have so many food allergies in our community that I decided not to chance it and adapted this activity using non-food items. We had a blast and the kids really enjoyed making their moons. I had a great discussion with the kids around their knowledge of the moon and they were very interested in the different layers.
Here's what I used:
Clay (Rice Krispie Tread)
Marble (cinnamon candy)
Gray craft sand (cocoa mix and powdered sugar)
Black buttons (chocolate chips)