Gingerbread Science Experiment

 In the story the Gingerbread Man did not want to get wet.  We did the Gingerbread Science Experiment to find out what happens when a gingerbread gets wet. We took a picture of a gingerbread man to show what it looked like before he got it wet. The chidren drew a picture of what they thought he would look like after he got wet and explained their predictions. See the slideshow to view the children's predictions.

Here is what our gingerbread man looked like after he got wet.

Children`s observations:

- It broke (Alessa).

- It cut in half (Folu).

- All of it breaked (Colin).

- It smells good (Brandon).






Then, we asked the question "Why did the gingerbread man break into pieces?"

Adam said that the water is rougher than the food you make. We agreed that the water creates friction against the cookie and helps to break it down. We then asked if an apple would break down if we put it in water. The children all agreed that it would not. We asked "What protects the apple?" Adam explained that the skin makes apples stronger than the water. We added that the skin also protect us from the water. That because of our skin, we are waterproof. We conclude that the gingerbread had absorbed the water and it is the reason why he broke into pieces. Sean commented that the gingerbread man broke because he did not have skin.This directed  us to ask the question what could the Old Lady from the story have put on the gingerbread man to help protect him from the water. Here are some suggestions: buttons, coat, chocolate, candies. After the New Year, we will test the impermeability of those objects to see if they could have been good choices and to see if we can find other objects that are waterproof.