Jello Cells

Animal Cell

Plant Cell

 My fifth graders are well into our study of cells in biology class.  We have discussed the structures and purposes of both animal and plant cells.  We have looked at cell photos and diagrams. Each student drew diagrams of the cells and labeled all the parts.  Today we made jello cells to make the concepts stick in their brains even better!

The animal cell was made in a plastic bag (cell membrane).  We used a jawbreaker as the nucleus, Mike and Ikes for the mitochondrion, and miniature marshmallows for the vacuoles.  The cytoplasm was red jello squeezed into the cell membrane on top of the organelles.

For the plant cell, we used a plastic cup for the cell wall.  Technically we probably should have lined it with a plastic bag because plant cells also have a cell membrane, but I didn't have enough plastic bags.  Oh well...  The nucleus and mitochondrion were the same as the animal cell.  We used one large marshmallow for the vacuole, green candies for chloroplasts and the cytoplasm was green jello (of course).

Next we are going to look at real plant and animal cells under the high school microscopes.  Hopefully by the end of this unit, these 5th graders will really know their cell parts!