Wondering Friday: All About Gummy Bears

Wonderopolis.org is such an incredible resource that promotes inquiry and wonder into each child's learning. The link below will take you straight to our wonder of the day:

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-are-gummy-bears-made/

Below is a picture of our wonder of the day which sparked all of our exploration. Please pay special attention to the student's questions. 

After wondering, I posed the 2 questions, "What are gummy bears made of? Do you think we can make our own gummy bears here at school?"  Of course, after making our own candles yesterday, our class was up for trying anything!  We used the recipe under the "Try it out" section on Wonderopolis.

Our Directions:

Ingredients Needed:

1. Gelatin

2. Jello

3. Water

4. Microwaveable measuring cup

5. Bear molds

First, we mixed the gelatin, jello, and water together in a microwaveable measuring cup

Next, we heated our mixture and poured it into our bear molds.  

Lastly, it was time to place them in the freezer for about 45 minutes.

It was finally time to taste our gummy bears!

After tasting, the students recorded their thoughts and observations in their wonder journals:

This was so much fun and sparked lots of natural curiosity in my kindergarten all*stars!

We love to "wonder" each morning in 5K!

Each morning, we start our day with a "Wonder of the Day."  The wonderful website, www.wonderopolis.org, posts a wonder of the day each morning.  I choose one picture from the gallery and have my students contribute questions that they have about the photograph.  After sharing and recording questions, the students illustrate and write their questions about the wonder of the day in their I Wonder journals.  Below is an example of our wonder one morning.  These were the questions my students asked about this man swimming. 

I have also shared a few examples of previous wonders from the student's journals.

What an exciting day full of research and wonder!

Today, Emily brought a lizard to school that she had found this weekend at home! Our class was very excited to begin researching about our new friend. We found a container to put him inside while we researched and added clear wrap to the top to keep him from crawling out! We discussed the importance of our lizard needing air to breathe so we decided to make holes in the wrap for him.

And then, we researched...

We are not positive, but our prediction is that our lizard friend may have been a bearded dragon that is a newborn! All of the pictures and our lizards actions lead us to that conclusion. He was standing completely still like a statue. This showed us that he was afraid and may have been cold. We learned that he eats crickets and other insects and we decided that we would not be able to meet his needs in that way! The animal lover that I am, I knew I wouldn't be able to feed our lizard the nutrients that he needed! As a class, we decided to let him go so that he could find his way back to his home and natural habitat. 

Of course it was raining, so the kids stayed dry inside while I let the lizard free outside!