Making a Cell Model out of Jello and Candy

In our science study this school year we are looking in depth at cells.  Making a model cell is a fun way to learn the different parts of the cell.  Space is at a premium so I often choose models that are consumable.  Jello and candy are readily consumed by my kids so I decided to go with a cell model plan using Jello and candy from Enchanted Learning.

I printed off a copy of the cell model from that site for each child and we went over each candy item and what part of the cell it represented as we built our model.  We used a plum for the nucleus and the plum pit for the nucleolus.  We used a bowl instead of a bag just because I didn’t have the right size bag on hand, but it worked out well anyway.  The Jello was the cytoplasm.  We use almonds for the vacuoles and raisins for the mitochondrian.

We used gummy worms and sour gummy worms for the endoplasmic reticulum and a dried piece of mango for the centrosome.  We used m&ms for the lysosomes as recommended, but the candy exterior melted into a mush around each candy so I would choose something else if we ever did this again.  For the golgi body I melted a little marshmallow, stretched it, and then folded it into a ribbon shape.  We added a good dose of sprinkles for ribosomes.  After chilling a couple hours I flipped it onto a plate and served it up.  I must admit that the final result did not look too appetizing, but my kids were eager to eat some.   But what matters most is that today, several days after we completed the cell model, my boys were mentioning parts of the cell that they remembered from our cell model activity.