March 2025

Here Come the Peeps!

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Academic Standards

Reading Objective:

Students will recognize that Peeps are made in steps by workers in a factory where ingredients are mixed to create marshmallow candy that is formed into shapes. Then the shapes are colored, decorated, and packaged to go to stores.

Next Generation Science Standards:

K-2 ETS1: Engineering Design

Vocabulary:

whipped, sticky

Use your Science Spin to find the best answer to each question.

 

1. What happens when the marshmallow mix gets whipped?
(It gets fluffy.)

2. How are the Peeps when they are new?
(warm and sticky)

3. What happens to the yellow sugar?
(It blows on the Peeps and sticks to them.)

4. Draw a Peep you would make for your favorite season.

 Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

  • It took 27 hours to make a tray of Peeps, until Bob Born, son of the company’s founder, invented the Depositor, a machine that made Peeps in six minutes!
  • Yellow is the original Peeps color and is still the most popular.
  • The Peeps’ eyes are made from a vegetable wax that’s safe to eat.

Materials: 1 package of Peeps/marshmallow candies; 3 clear cups/jars; 3 different liquids such as water, vinegar (recommended), or juice; pencils, copies of the skill sheet

Overview: Kids observe what happens when Peeps are placed in 3 different types of liquid. Which dissolves the Peeps fastest? What other changes in the Peeps and/or differences among liquids can they observe and record?

Directions:

  1. Before starting the experiment, fill 3 clear jars/glasses halfway with 3 different liquids. (Acidic ones, like vinegar, dissolve Peeps fastest.) Label each jar.
  2. Grab the package of Peeps. Gather the students. Remind them what they read about making Peeps, which are full of sugar. Sugary things dissolve in water. That means they break up and look like they’re disappearing. Actually, the sugar has simply mixed with the water to make a solution.
  3. Pass out the skill sheets for kids to record their observations. Put a Peeps candy in each cup of liquid. 
  4. Observe the Peeps now and over the next few days. What changes? Color? Size? Texture? Students can record observations on their skill sheets.