Attention Getter: Corn Globe?
Print out small pictures of corn and tape them to a piece of paper that you can lay in front of the class. Then take out a globe and ask the class, "What do you think we get to learn about today?" When they guess, "corn" and "world" you can lead them to the idea that corn grows all over the world. Let each child come up and place one corn picture on the globe. Tell them what country they placed it on and then move to the next child. Point out that the only place corn does not grow is in Antartica because it is too cold!
Activity 1: What is Made From Corn?
Have a few baggies filled with foods that have corn in them. Pass each one around the circle and let the children taste them. Then, tell them that each of these food items has the ingredient of corn in them. Show some other pictures of crazy things that have corn in them as well. (Tires, glue, gas and etc.) Point out that corn is used for many things.
Book: Corn by Gail Gibbons
This book gives some great details about the history of corn, the parts of corn and current uses of corn. It is not a book to read directly to the children, but rather to use as a discussion book. (Read the book before the children arrive so that you know it well enough to discuss the pictures and concepts.) I always tell the children to watch carefully as we point out the parts of corn on page , so that they can help us put those parts on the real corn stalk we have in class.
Activity 2: Parts of Corn
Show the children a corn stalk and corn cob. Let them feel the corn cob and then see if they can label all of the parts that are described in the story. Place name cards on the corn as they do. The parts of the corn that we identified were: roots, stalk, leaf, cob, tassel and node.
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