Can I just say I got some strange things as I tried searching “candy spine?” Oh, and this was a very popular science lesson, something about the crazy sugar high they were on after making AND eating the silly candy spine thing made it one of our most popular anatomy lessons of the year.
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Supplies for a candy spine
(I bought packages large enough for 4 kids, we didn’t have all that much leftover)
Lifesavers Hard Candy, Five Flavor, 41 Oz (anyone else remember the packs where the lifesavers stuck together?),
How to make a candy spine
Very first thing, take a few minutes to get all of those hard lifesavers out of their wrappers. You will be glad you did this later as you’re wrangling stuff, and it lets you make sure none of the pieces are broken.
- Weave 2 licorice whips through the first hard lifesaver. Then take turns layering the hard and gummy lifesavers on the “spinal cord” of your candy spine.
- Break some of the licorice whips into smaller pieces and put that between each of the hard and gummy lifesavers.
Take a break from the “learning” to model your spinal column and be generally silly. That’s always very important.
Or it is in our house.
Now, let’s talk through why we used each part of this candy spine.
First we used two licorice whips because our spinal cord is multiple nerve fibers clustered together. If we could have forced more than 2 through there I would have, but two made it difficult enough.
The hard lifesavers represent our vertebrae, which is to protect our spine and lets us stand upright. Without them we wouldn’t be able to walk upright, AND we’d probably be paralyzed before we were 5. All animals with skeletons have a spine of some sort.
Intervertabral discs are necessary so we aren’t in constant pain. It’s the cartilage between our vertebrae. Again without these we can’t move because our spine would be in a bunch of painful pieces by the wear and tear of the vertebrae.
The final piece we don’t think about is the large numbers of nerve clusters exiting our spine all along it. This is the part I added in from other candy spines I’ve seen. These nerve clusters exit our spine and go out to the rest of our body to communicate. This is where the nerves come from that go to our hands, our legs, everywhere.
And of course at the end of the lesson you need to
eat that candy spine. As disturbing an image as that is, but it was quite popular with the kids, as you can imagine.
Oh, and before I forget: More nervous system activities and ideas
Of course you know the first thing I had to do was do a search for “candy spine” 🙂 Great project though – I’m sure it would be a big hit here too.
Of course, large amounts of candy 🙂
What fun!! I will certainly be pinning this for our body unit next year!
You’ll enjoy it so much. We loved studying the body this year.
I just love this! It is brilliant. I have made the gummy lifesaver and wagon wheel pasta column, but this is leaps and bounds better. I love the nerve clusters! Oh, I think we will have to go back and make these next year!
I kinda like the nerve clusters, because it seems so integral to the idea.
Pasta wheels would work really well, I hadn’t really thought of that as an idea. Of course hen you wouldn’t have a super cool all candy spine.
We will do this for sure, too! Fantastic idea.
I can’t believe Lifesavers now come individually wrapped. Saves getting the chisel out I guess. We call them Polos in Britain for some reason. (Of course I just had to look that up. Apparently it’s because the mint flavoured ones were so cool and fresh – “polar”. Right that’s enough tangenting.)
Thank you for hosting Science Sunday.
I know, it just didn’t seem right they are individually wrapped now. Such a cop out 😉
Very cool! And delicious 🙂
I know, I hadn’t remembered how much I liked Lifesavers until I started eating them.
Such an original idea for learning about spinal cord! Love it.
It was so much fun to do.
What a great idea! Before I clicked the link I was thinking a spinal cord made of nerds rope, but I don’t know what you could thread it through
Thanks! We’ve been reviewing anatomy this week, so I’ve actually been thinking about this project a lot.
This is honestly a fabulous idea for teaching the kids about the anatomy of the spine! Genius! The hands-on element is bound to make a longer impact as well, I’ll bet. It would also make a great demonstration for what happens when people get paralyzed–such as, part of their spinal cord is damaged so they lose feeling to those areas of their body from the nerves exiting the spine. I love this candy spine!
Thanks! It was certainly a big hit with my kids when we did it.
i love it