So many of our kids are disappointed about Spring Break vacations being cancelled this year, due to the Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID-19). So I thought it would be really fun for our kids to do a Hersheypark Lesson Plan! They can get a healthy dose of education, while turning your home into Hersheypark! Who said that fun spring break vacations can’t happen while we are quarantined?! We will make a chocolate vending machine, do a “chocolate race” science experiment, practice our addition and fractions with Hershey math worksheets and of course there will be chocolate writing prompts and reading materials too! But, before we begin, join our Facebook Group and “like” our Facebook Page, so you won’t miss out on any of our educational fun!
🧪 Hershey Chocolate Science Experiments
What could be more fun than Hershey’s chocolate science experiments?!
- Let’s do a chocolate race!!! All you need are two glasses of hot water, a copper wire, an aluminum wire and two pieces of Hershey’s chocolate. (Do not worry, we will do some fun arts and crafts projects with the extra wire in another lesson plan!!!). Carefully place a piece of chocolate onto the end of each wire, and place the wires into their own glasses of hot water (the chocolate should be up in the air). Watch carefully to see which piece of chocolate moves down the wire first! One of these metals is a better conductor of heat, thus allowing the heat from the hot water to travel up and melt the chocolate, causing it to slide down the wire. Which will it be? Spoiler alert here.
- Have a budding engineer in your house? Learn how to make a candy vending machine, and fill it with mini Hershey bars! All you need is cardboard, rubber bands, tape and a hot glue gun (depending on your child’s age, adult assistance may be needed with this part). Here is how you do it!
- If you are not up for doing a hands-on science experiment today, checkout this fun video that explains the science behind chocolate. Or take a peek into MIT’s Laboratory for Chocolate Science here.
🥣 Hersheypark Recipes
I love to incorporate recipes and fun food ideas into lesson plans! Here are a few fun (and yummy!) Hershey’s chocolate recipes.
- What would a Hershey’s lesson plan be without making homemade S’mores! Or if you REALLY want to excite your kids, get this indoor S’mores maker!
- Another fun idea that will remind your kids of Hersheypark is to make your very own chocolate bars with this Chocolate Bar Maker!
- Make these chocolate bowls with balloons. Your kids will have so much fun and you can use them to serve dessert in later!
- I LOVE Hershey’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (which breaks my heart, because two of my kids are allergic to nuts!). Follow this recipe to make your very own! I am thinking about substituting sunflower butter for the peanut butter, so that my kids with allergies can enjoy it too!
📚 Hersheypark Reading & Worksheets
My daughter did a biography report on Milton Hershey last year (in 2nd grade) and these were some of the books that she used. They are even free with Amazon Audiobooks!
- Who Was Milton Hershey by James Buckley – If you read this book, then here is a free reading comprehension worksheet.
- Milton Hershey: More Than Chocolate: Heroes of History
- Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams by Michael D’Antonio
- This is also a great, free podcast done by Harvard Business Review on the history of Hershey!
Kindergarten – 2nd Grade: Here are some more Hershey reading materials and worksheets.
- Work on word endings including -s, -ed and -ing with this Hershey Kiss worksheet.
- Here is a child-friendly reading passage on the history of Milton Hershey.
3rd – 5th Grade: Take your pick from these Hershey articles. Parents of younger kids, you may enjoy reading these with your kids too!
- Biography.com’s history of Milton Hershey article
- Time.com’s story of “How the Hershey’s Kiss Conquered Valentine’s Day”
- CNBC’s article “After 124 years, Hershey tries to be more than just a chocolate company (again)”
- Hersheypark’s history straight from the park in Hershey, PA
✏ Hersheypark Writing Prompts & Free Workbooks
Kindergarten – 2nd Grade: Use your five senses to write all about Hershey kisses using this free workbook.
3rd – 5th Grade: Pick one of these Hershey’s writing prompts to complete.
- If you were the CEO of Hershey’s, what would be the next product that you would create? What ingredients would you need? What would it be called? What would the packaging look like?
- If you could create anything, entirely out of chocolate, what would you create?
🧮 Hershey Math Worksheets & Games
If you do not have any Hershey bars on hand (I strongly suggest you get some, since the theme of the day is Hersheypark!!!), but you can also print out this worksheet and color it brown to represent a Hershey bar.
- K-2nd Grades
- Practice addition with this free Hershey Kiss worksheet.
- See how many addition and subtraction problems you can create and solve with these fun hot chocolate worksheets.
- For our preschool friends who are following along, try these free hot chocolate counting mats with mini marshmallows (so much fun!).
- 3rd-5th Grades
- Use a Hershey bar to explore fractions with this worksheet. Here is another one too!
- Learn about denominators with this Hershey math sheet.
- Do these Hershey bar multiplication worksheets.
- Learn how to calculate the mean with these worksheets.
- Practice measuring the circumference, radius and other geometric principles with this Hershey Kiss worksheet.
- See how many multiplication and division problems you can create and solve with these fun hot chocolate worksheets.
🖌 Hershey Art Projects
- Watch this fantastic lesson on how to draw a chocolate bar with Art for Kids Hub!
- You can cut shapes out of your Hershey’s kisses foil (or just use aluminum foil, if you aren’t eating that many Hershey’s kisses) to make art like this.
- Another fun foil art project is this one, but it requires a glue gun and sharpies, so an adult may need to help!
- Hershey has fun coloring sheets and games (like mazes and word searches) here.
- Hersheypark also has some great coloring sheets here.
🤸♀️ Hersheypark Workout Exercise
Who goes to Hersheypark and does not get one of their King Size Shakes?! So in honor of them, we will do GoNoodle’s Milkshake dance for our exercise today, along with Moose Tube’s Peanut Butter Cup (because, Reese’s!!!).
If you still have not had enough, here is a fantastic collection of Hershey projects like chocolate graphing, cacao tree geography and exploring chocolate density (for Kindergarten through 12th grade). There is something fun for everyone, but they will require some extra preparation from adults, which is why I have put this resource at the very end.
And the most fun part… share a photo or video of your Hersheypark science experiments, your Hersheypark art projects, or any of your other fun activities on Facebook! Make sure to include a link to this website or to our Facebook Group and Facebook Page, so that we can see it too! I’ve purposefully added a lot of options for parents who need to keep their kiddos occupied for more time and to allow you to cater to your children’s preferences.
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