We had lots of fun experimenting with candy canes today! Before we could get started experimenting (or eating!), we had to use our fine motor/pre-writing muscles to open up the individually wrapped candy canes! And while we unwrapped, we watched this short video about how candy canes are made.
We talked about what happens to a candy cane when we suck on it...though we had to really think about it since most of the kids didn't have the patience not to chew them! Then we talked about what we thought would happen to the candy canes when we put them in each of our four bowls: one with ice water, one with warm water, one with boiling water, and one with vinegar.
The kids noticed right away that the candy canes in the hot water turned the water red quickly. The candy dissolved in the warm water next, with slower results in the cold water and the vinegar. Next, I pulled out some baking soda and we added that to the bowl of vinegar. We got the exciting fizzy reaction we are used to from that fun combination, but other than that it didn't do much to the candy.
Next, I asked the kids what they thought might happen if we put some candy canes into the oven. "They would get hot!", "They will get bigger." (I'm sure that guess comes from watching baked goods rise in the oven, so there was some great thinking going on there!)
So, we tried it and the answer is: they get bendy! :) We put our mini candy canes in at 225* for about 8 minutes and when they came out, if we moved slowly and carefully, we could bend them into different shapes!
We had lots of fun playing with our candy today! :)
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