Science Lab: Candy Spine

Confession: I'm a closet science nerd. My senior year of high school I electively took three science classes (four if you count psychology). So, naturally, now that I'm my kids' teacher (a la homeschool), I'm giddy to introduce them to the wonders of science (which demonstrate the wonder of our Creator)

Our homeschool community gives us LOTS of ideas and resources for digging deeper into our weekly curriculum. When I saw the idea to make a candy spine (we're learning the 4 parts of the axial skeleton this week), this hands-on learner immediately added it to our schedule, and then hit up Amazon for all the candy.

Supplies:

Directions:

  1. Most likely your hard life savers are going to be individually wrapped. Let your kids practice their scissor skills and let them unwrap all of the hard life savers themselves. Then have them put them in a container/bowl. 

  2. Empty out your gummy life savers into another bowl and your laces into another.
  3. Take a few of your laces and break them into two inch pieces. (You'll end up breaking up more as you go, but this will get you started.)
  4. Depending on how long your laces are, either tie two together (at their ends) or fold one in half, and knot the end where they're folded. 
  5. String the two laces through one hard life saver and slide the hard life saver down to the knot. 
  6. Then string a gummy life saver down to the knot.
  7. Then put one of your two inch pieces in between the two laces on top of the gummy life saver. 
  8. Repeat steps 5-7 until you run out of room!
  9. If your kids are older, consider making each spinal region its own color to get a little more specific. If your kids are younger, you're doing awesome if you get 10 sets on there without them eating all of the supplies. Do not feel the need to color coordinate the cervical verses the thoracic vertebrae, etc. 
Lesson:

Our back bone is called the spine. The spine is made up of vertebrae (hard life savers). In between each vertebrae is a vertebral disc (gummy life saver). (Be sure to point out to your older students that only the first 23 vertebrae have discs in between them.) Running up through the middle of the vertebrae and the discs is our spinal cord (licorice laces). The spinal cord is made up of nerves. We call all of these parts together the spinal column. All the way up and down our spinal column, nerves (two inch pieces) exit to send and receive messages from the brain to the rest of the body. 

Big Picture Notes:
  • Point out how God created the different systems of our body to work together. In this example, the skeleton system works to protect the nervous system.
  • Remind your kids how important it is to take care of our bodies! Talk about different ways to take care of their spine: always wearing a seatbelt, do not pick up anything that is too big or heavy for them, when and where to do flips, summersaults, etc, eating healthy foods that make their bones strong.
  • Encourage your kids to feel the vertebrae on their own backs with their fingers. This will help make the connection between what they're holding in their hands (candy spine) with real life. 
  • Keep it fun! Your kiddo might not remember the terms vertebrae, spinal column, or vertebral discs weeks from now, but hopefully they'll remember the big picture: their body is AMAZING, intricate, and was designed by a Creator who loves them and made them in His image. 

Until next time, 

<3 Lindsay

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