Welcome to our “It’s a Sweet Life – Candy Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to the oh-so-fun sweets and treats! After all, what better way to get them to keep learning than to pick something they LOVE – sugar and sweets!
For this day, we turned our attention to a classic favorite – cotton candy!! We dove a bit deeper into cotton candy, what it actually is, and how it was discovered and made! Read on to check out a fun filled day of learning, reading, crafts, and activities all on cotton candy!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 Our relaxed & learning fun day kicks off with an introduction to the day’s theme. Then, we move onto videos and themed activities (reading, writing – or story telling – time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments). Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
You may or may not already be familiar with this fluffy treat. Chances are, though, you’ll have seen it in a fair, carnival, circus, or summer fest! If not – or if you just want a cotton candy fact refresher, check out the links below. They’re perfect for providing a brief intro for your little ones (or to gather up some knowledge as well!)!
WHAT TO WATCH
- How Is Cotton Candy Made? | The Science of Food! | SciShow Kids by SciShow Kids (5m)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we enjoyed cotton candy all by itself in all its yummy goodness but also tried out some results of the How to do a Cotton Candy Experiment with Kids by We Know Stuff.
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- Fairy Floss: Sweet Story of Cotton Candy by Ann Ingalls
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: SUGAR, SWEETS, CANDY, COTTON CANDY, CANDY FLOSS
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Imagine you were an alien wandering around Earth. You happened to find yourself at a carnival. One of the first things you see is a cotton candy stand. What would you think it was used for? What about other carnival snacks and games? Describe how an alien might think those had different purposes.
- What is your most favorite memory involving cotton candy?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning! Below are some of the crafts we looked at:
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
- What Keeps Cotton Candy Fresh Longer? We created a one-pager to jot down hypothesis and pick out a few containers that might keep cotton candy fresh (or not :)). (Feel free to use or link back to this post for the one-pager below!) Then we left the candy in their contains and checked back after 1 hour and then 5 hours! We could have gone a bit longer, but the cotton candy was too irresistible 🙂
- What Makes Cotton Candy Dissolve? We created another one-pager to jot down hypothesis for this one as well. (Feel free to use or link back to this post for the one-pager below!) The goal was to figure out how quickly substances made cotton candy dissolve.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home learning fun article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest.
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Candy Week days, Sweets & Treats Ideas, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
