Easter - Part 2 - Planting Jelly Beans to Grow Lollipops

I saw an idea on Facebook about "planting" jelly beans the night before Easter, so they can sprout into lollipops for Easter morning. We live in a semi-rural area, and there is no shortage of critters who would snarf down any stray anything resembling something edible. Planting outdoors was definitely out of the question.

We planted indoors, and I decided that we should have edible "dirt". I was thinking of crushing Oreos. While out running errands, I mentioned to Minion that I had read a story about planting jelly beans and when the Easter Bunny comes, they sprout into lollipops. At almost 8 I'm never sure what I can and can't get away with as far as plausibility. He seemed pretty into it though, so we discussed soil. He suggested chocolate chips - smart boy! As we were hunting for "regular" jelly beans (soft, and not tiny) he said we should get some worms to make them grow better, like the worms in the ground. Then he suggested gummy worms. I was good with that, so we picked up a couple packs. It took several stops, but we finally found  soft, regular jelly beans. When we finally found the jelly beans, I got lucky and he had to potty, so I snagged lollipops too. Along the way, I had the idea to use the cups we had dyed eggs in, to plant our jelly beans. He was definitely on board, and really excited about planting, at this point. I made a big point of telling him not to put more than about 5 in a cup, so they wouldn't run out of room to grow. We added a couple worms to each cup, to speed the growing process, too. This was honestly a ton of fun!

He was very proud of his planting:

I didn't think the little monkey was ever going to crash out (or even get close to it), but once he did, we grew lollipops!

I was really looking forward to his reaction the next morning, and he did not disappoint! We even wound up discussing DNA and genetics and how genes determine your eye and hair color, and that was how the different colored jelly beans made different colored lollipops. Minion is a huge fan of science, so he totally ate it up!