During practicum I taught a unit in language arts on the novel How to Eat Fried Worms
For the end of the novel study, I planned a worm party in which we would play book bingo (the squares contained character names and students created clues to accompany them) and have a dirt cake. The dirt cake was so much fun to make. I bought a flowerpot, a garden spade and a plastic bouquet of flowers to make it look completely real. Unfortunately, on the
afternoon of our worm party there was a power outage at the school and the students had to be dismissed to the care of their parents. It was an enormous process to contact each of the parents to come to pick up their kids so during the chaos we managed to fit in the dirt cake. I showed the students the cake introducing it as a plant I had received for my last day as a gift. The students were commenting on what a nice plant it was, until I proceeded to take a spoon and eat a bite of it. Ewwwwwwwww. They realized it was a cake and had a blast eating it with the gummy worms found throughout. I didn’t get to take a picture of it because…..well it was dark, but here is a picture I found on the internet.
All the teachers came in to check out the cake and loved the idea. One teacher suggested a litter box cake would be another great idea to capture the attention of the students, which I thought would be fun to do with grade 6’s or 7’s.
For the end of the novel study, I planned a worm party in which we would play book bingo (the squares contained character names and students created clues to accompany them) and have a dirt cake. The dirt cake was so much fun to make. I bought a flowerpot, a garden spade and a plastic bouquet of flowers to make it look completely real. Unfortunately, on the
afternoon of our worm party there was a power outage at the school and the students had to be dismissed to the care of their parents. It was an enormous process to contact each of the parents to come to pick up their kids so during the chaos we managed to fit in the dirt cake. I showed the students the cake introducing it as a plant I had received for my last day as a gift. The students were commenting on what a nice plant it was, until I proceeded to take a spoon and eat a bite of it. Ewwwwwwwww. They realized it was a cake and had a blast eating it with the gummy worms found throughout. I didn’t get to take a picture of it because…..well it was dark, but here is a picture I found on the internet.All the teachers came in to check out the cake and loved the idea. One teacher suggested a litter box cake would be another great idea to capture the attention of the students, which I thought would be fun to do with grade 6’s or 7’s.
6 comments:
Okay, I think I like the worm cake idea better than a litter box cake! That sounds just eewy! But anyway, that cake must have been terrific, I bet the kids loved it. I know how you feel about not getting to share it in its entirety because the power went off at my school too so the video I made for them of their field trip didn't get played. But thanks for sharing this with us, and I really like how you ate it without them knowing first. That must have been great to see the looks on their faces!
Dena, what a fantastic idea! I'm sure it was extremely entertaining for the kids when they thought you were eating dirt, haha... I can just imagine their reactions. I loved "How to Eat Fried Worms" when I was a kid, and if I ever get to teach it, I totally want to try the dirt cake idea!
I love the dirt cake, but the litter box cake is gross! Did you use oreo crumbs on top of the cake to make it look like dirt or was just the cake itself convincing enough?
I like the worm cake idea. I did something similar for one of my children's birthday. It was a whole garden though. (enough to feed 15 people). I thought the litter box thing was a oool idea. What would you teach to use this prop and what was the litter made of? Oatmeal?
So amazing Dena! What a wonderful idea! I would love to use this in my own teaching as well. :) It so looked so real I actually thought it was dirt and flowers! *lol* It's so nice to see so much energy and life in your lessons hun. Good for you. :) Kudos!
This might just be an observation from a boy who refuses to grow up but the litter box cake is hilarious. I can see students really getting a laugh out of this. Maybe just the boys, I don't know, but it put a smile on my face so thanks.
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