What’s inside jelly beans? | Kitchen Lab 4 Kids

What’s inside jelly beans? – home preparation of sweet jellies

Type of resource: website

Web address https://wklasie.uniwersytetdzieci.pl/scenariusz/co-kryja-w-sobie-zelkowe-misie

Language: English

Description

Experiment – Making jelly beans, observing and explaining the process of gelation, comparing tastes and quality of different jelly beans

Scientific concept introduced

– Heating

– Cooling

– Gelatin

– Gelation

Creative and critical thinking

Critical thinking

Mathematical reasoning

Weighing and dosing substances

Scientific thinking

– Cognitive curiosity

– Problem solving

– Observation

– Prediction

– Drawing conclusions

Learning how to learn

Thinking and acting independently

Additional

Teamwork:

– collective decision making

– sharing ideas

– adopting responsible attitude when handling duties

Development of manual skills (eye-hand coordination).

What’s inside jelly beans? – home preparation of sweet jellies

Overall aims

– To learn what the process of home production of jelly beans looks like;

– To develop skills in critical and logical thinking, reasoning, argumentation and drawing conclusions;

– To develop creativity and inventiveness in children;

– To practise motor skills;

– To improve skills in dosing and weighing ingredients;

– To develop social competencies

Vocabulary – keywords should be understood

Experiments, jelly beans, heating, cooling, gelatin, gelation

Expected learning outcomes (operational aims)

Enumerate basic composition of jelly beans;

Know what purpose gelatin serves;

Produce jelly beans from provided ingredients;

Conduct simple experiments;

State open questions and hypotheses;

Make observations and draw conclusions;

Improve manual dexterity (cutting, stirring etc.) ;

Dose and weigh necessary ingredients;

Cooperate with others for a common goal.

STEM skills – to which the learning unit is related to

CORE STEM SKILLS

To learn to think and discover:

– cognitive curiosity

– problem solving

– observation, prediction

– drawing conclusions

– thinking and acting independently

– mathematical thinking applied when weighing and dosing substances

ADDITIONAL SKILLS

Teamwork

– collective decision making

– sharing ideas

– adopting responsible attitude when handling duties

Development of manual skills

– eye-hand coordination

Teaching methodologies/activity outline

1. “How are jelly beans produced?” – educational video
https://wklasie.uniwersytetdzieci.pl/scenariusz/co-kryja-w-sobie-zelkowe-misie

– What are jelly beans?

– How do jelly beans get their shape?

– What shapes can jelly beans take?

– Why do jellies need to be sprinkled before being placed in bags?

– What flavours can jellies have?

– What ingredients are jelly beans made of?

2. “My jelly bean production” – experiment guidelines

Children are set the task of producing jellies from available ingredients based on a recipe provided.

Ingredients and the necessary utensils/equipment:

– a bowl of strawberries or other fruit;

– a glass of water;

– one lemon;

– two spoonfuls of honey;

– one bag of gelatin;

– jelly molds – silicon molds for pralines or ice or, alternatively, small-sized containers made from food contact materials (the ready mix can be also placed in empty orange halves);

– cooker (for warming the mix);

– refrigerator (for cooling the mix).

Method

Blend the strawberries. Squeeze lemon juice into a saucepan, pour honey, add gelatin and the blended strawberries. Mix the contents and then boil it. Once it cools down, pour it into the molds. Place the molds in the fridge for one hour.

3. Physical game: Gelation

During the gelling process, children tidy up their workspaces as they get ready for a physical game.

The aim of the game is to illustrate how substances congeal. The teacher will ask two questions:

How does juice turn into jelly? What impacts the gelling process?

Divide the children into two groups: the gelling substance (gelatin) group and the fruit juice group.

Children from the fruit juice group should hold their hands to form a loose chain. Say command: ‘Add gelatin!’ – the children from the gelatin group join those in the fruit jelly chain. Call out ‘Cooling time!” – the kids should grasp their hands tightly and come closer, which means the mix congeals. Call out ‘Heating time!’ to see them move apart to show gelatin dissolving.

4. Home-made jellies vs those you get in shops: summary

Are home-made jelly beans different from those you can find in shops?

How do they differ?

Which ones taste better?

Which jellies are healthier?

Assessment of learning

Sentence completion:

– What mattered to me during the class was …

– I got really interested by…

– I will remember…

– What amazed me was…

Equipment and materials to be used in learning unit (tools, ingredients etc)