Edible Earth Model and Interactive Writing

      As part of our Earth, Sun, and Moon unit, we created an edible Earth model after learning about the different layers of the Earth.  This could also be a really fun Earth Day activity.  Before we made the edible model, we studied non-fiction conventions and learned about being readers of non-fiction text.  Here are a few anchor charts we made.  The second picture is of a chart still in progress...I actually make a copy of the page from the book I use to model whichever convention I am teaching about for the day and glue it to the chart to help kids remember our learning together.

After we learned about diagrams and labels, together we labeled the diagram I created of the Layers of the Earth.

Then, we did some interactive writing and filled in missing information, sight words, and chunks while reviewing what we had learned about each of the layers.  Whenever possible, I really try to integrate science and social studies content into literacy.  So, we did this during our word work time.

Finally, we got to make our edible Earth model. I got the idea for the inner and outer core from a Pinterest picture of bite-size caramel apples with pretzel sticks in them.  

Edible Earth

For the four layers, we used:

         1.  inner core- apple (I used a fruit scoop.  It took about 3 apples for my class of 25 students).

               -The inner core is solid metal.  The apple was a good model of how the inner core is solid,         

         2.  outer core- caramel dip 

                -The outer core is made of molten rock, so the caramel has a similar consistency.

         3.  mantle- crushed graham crackers

                -The mantle is made of rock.

         4.  crust- crushed chocolate graham crackers

                -The crust is the outer covering of Earth, made of land and water.  

So, we used the chocolate graham crackers to look like land (soil).

The kids loved it and learned the layers of Earth.   Please let me know what you think and how it goes when you try it with your class!