We talked about how there are four parts of blood and what each parts' job is. The concept was a bit over their heads, but they had fun making blood, especially because we made it out of candy!
Making Blood!
Empty mini plastic water bottles
Corn Syrup = Plasma
Mini Marshmallows = White Blood Cells
Sour Cherry Candies = Red Blood Cells
Chocolate Sprinkles = Platelets
I poured the corn syrup in each bottle so it was about half full. I told them that this was the plasma and that the liquid part of blood isn't really red, it just looks red because of the red blood cells. They thought that was super cool.
Next I had each child count out 20 "red blood cells" and 10 "white blood cells". I may or may not have let them sample the blood cells! ;) This was great for practicing our counting both in English and Spanish. It was also a great fine motor activity. We learned that the job of red blood cells is to carry oxygen around our bodies and that the white ones help fight yucky germs! I poured some platelets in each of their bottles and told them that these help stop bleeding when they get a cut.
Finally we sealed up their bottles, nice and tight! The kids loved shaking them up to mix the blood! They were very intrigued by their bottles of blood and would have sat all morning moving them around and watching all the different parts! They were so proud of their blood that we even had to go show other teachers and our school director what we made. They were able to tell them what each part was called! Hearing them say platelets was pretty funny!
One of the teacher's assistants in another room said to me "I bet there aren't many kids that can say they made blood in preschool." I replied, "that's the point!" :)
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