Flashback to Fourth - Pollination

I will be continuing with posts from student teaching this past fall for the next few days! I wanted to highlight a lesson that I found the inspiration for here. I was covering the science SOL 4.4 and had to teach pollination. My first reaction was "how in the WORLD do you get fourth graders to understand pollination???" After some frantic googling, I came across the blog above and fell in love with the activity!!

To start, I poured Starbursts (still in their wrappers) in the bottom of a big bowl and covered them with cheese puffs. The Starbursts represented the nectar found in the "flower" and the cheese puffs were the stamen covered in cheesy "pollen". I then invited my little pollinators up to the table one at a time to root through the stamen to get their nectar. 

 
As they did,  their hands quickly became covered in "pollen". They then had to pick up more nectar from the next flower (cut out of a paper towel) and saw how the "pollen" rubbed off as they did.

 The kids were so excited and one boy shouted "I did it Miss Hunt! I pollinated that flower! I'm a rockin' bee!" I let the students eat their Starburst, but after the lesson, a girl said "Could we help you eat the stamen now??" I even had a parent send a note the next day saying that her child couldn't stop talking about the lesson! A memorable lesson AND a snack? Score! :-)