This activity requires some things you might not always have around the house, but you will use these items for 2 weeks. Plus, the kids really like doing an edible activity. It really seemed to help them remember the parts of the animal cell.
Materials:
- Rice Crispy Cereal
- Marshmallows
- Butter
- Pink food coloring
- Fruit by-the-foot
- Oreo cookies
- Tootsie rolls
- Peppermints,
- Labels for each part in printable section (available in my guide here).
Edible Animal Cell
- Cytoplasm: Make rice crispy treats. Color them pink with food coloring. Shape into a big round circle.
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 40 large marshmallows
- 6 cups rice crispies
- Melt butter in low heat in large saucepan. Add marshmallows. Melt. Add a few drops red food coloring. Add rice crispies. Mix. Drop some onto a platter and form into a circle. I used a buttered spatula to help. I had some leftovers, so I put it in a buttered dish. Let cool.
- Cell Membrane: Use the fruit by-the-foot to go around the rice crispy circle.
- Nucleus: Oreo Cookie, place on rice crispy cytoplasm.
- Vacuole: tootsie rolls, place in cytoplasm.
- Mitochondria: peppermints, place in cytoplasm.
- Golgi bodies: fruit by-the-foot, loop it kinda back and forth a bit. The Golgi body kinda has this shape, place in cytoplasm.
- Label each item with printable labels, talk about each item in the cell and its function (see Fast Facts below).
- Eat your cell! I had my child say the item and its function before they could take it off the cell and eat it.
Fast Facts
- Nucleus: round part in a cell that controls the cell’s functions, contains the DNA.
- Cytoplasm: gel-like substance that fills the cell.
- Vacuole: garbage collection areas.
- Mitochondria: energy producers in the cell.
- Cell Membrane: thin outside layer of cell.
- Golgi bodies: center that transports proteins out of the cell
