Totally lovin' my candy bar project

My kids were so engaged with this activity! We are now watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which should be finished on Tuesday. (I'll be out on Monday, which I'll post about later.) When we did the comparison chart, I had the students label "subject A" and "subject B" with the name of the candy bar. I then told them to label "Point A" as the wrapper, "Point B" as outside of the candy bar and "Point C" as inside of the candy bar. The final part, "Part D", they were instructed to draw line through and then label as "My Opinion."

I had two candy bars and each student had two candy bars. (I had to purchase 6 bag of fun size candy bars! I almost did not have enough.) We then discussed the wrapper of our first candy bar. I wrote down what I noticed on my candy bar and then instructed my students to do the same. After we made sure we had noted at least three things about the wrapper, we then looked at the second candy bar and repeated the process.

My students were then instructed to open up the wrapper of "Subject A", placing it back on the wrapper. I told them to thoroughly examine the candy bar and take note of everything they saw on their bar. Again, I modeled this by taking notes and placing my notes on the whiteboard. This process was repeated for "Subject B."

Students were then asked to gently pull apart the "Subject A" bar. (At this point, I think they felt I was torturing them.) We talked about what we saw and I told them not to worry about having the correct word to describe the candy in the middle (like nougat) because I really wanted them to use descriptive words as much as possible. Again, the process was repeated for "Subject B". (Poor Subject B, always following in the footsteps of Subject A. Anyway, don't mind me.)

Then, the pièce de résistance! They were allowed to eat one candy bar at a time, then write down which one they preferred and why. (In my next post, I'll discuss how they will now take this information and simply plug into an essay format.)

They were so engaged in this procedure in a way that I have never witnessed before! Even more engaged than when we have done lessons on the SmartBoard. Today was just one of those really good teaching days. We all need one of those :)