Another Fun with Food - Moon phases with OREOS!

I found this excited resource on FB one day. Kitchen Science Experiments that YOU CAN EAT!

And I've learned that ANYTIME you can combine FOOD with learning, kids are all in!  And most of you know that we try REALLY hard to cook/create something on Fridays.  "Fun with Food Friday" is a big deal in our home and a great way to end the week.

Because it's summer and our summer has been crazy with traveling...we are just learning on the fly.  So this is just a random day that I happened to impulse buy a package of Oreos (Double Stuffed of course!) 

After naps, we watched this YouTube video on the phases of the moon.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCweccNOaqo

They needed some schema on this topic...I really don't even fully understand the whole moon cycle.  But I'm proud to say that after this lesson, I do now!

I sent the boys outside while I prepared their plates.  Making sure that they had the right amount of cookies to represent each phase.  I twisted them off and place them on a plate. 

When they came in from outside, they washed up and our lesson began.  I had this picture displayed on the tablet as we talked about the different phases.  

I used sticky notes to label each cookie/moon as we worked our way around the phases. They boys used a craft stick to carve out the icing to make each moon...then got to lick off the extra!  YUM-O!

Once our moons were created - I sent them off to play again!  It had taken us about 10 minutes to carve and cut the cookie.  And that's just enough for little learners.  We'll have plenty of time to come back for the next step...maybe even use it for our dessert!  I was also going to use the next step as a mini-assessment for what they had learned or didn't understand.

Cupcakes/Earths were created!

After dinner and before bath (easy clean up), I invite N over for his fun, informal assessment.  The orange plate is the sun, his cupcake is the earth, and I laid out all the labels to see if he could match up the moon phases. I had the tablet screen posted with the picture I used while we were carving out our cookies.  I think a 4 year old deserves a resource to refer back to, right?

After he placed them all, we called his Mimi and Bobo on FaceTime and he taught them all about what he had learned.

I worked with J the next day on his moon phases.  He had had a rough day, so we didn't do the activity with N.  I felt this was a fun reward that needed to be taken away for that day.

But with a great attitude, the next day, he was ready to go!  With J, I separated cookies and labels.  He had to try to place them accordingly, based off his prior knowledge.  Then we used the tablet to revise his thinking and discuss the specifics.  Daddy was home that day, so he got to share what he had learned with him.

 AND he was one proud dude!

There's a little peek inside a Friday filled with Fun and Food.  And now I get to eat all the left over Oreos during nap time!  SWEET!

Happy Summer and Happy Learning with your Little Ones!