corn Archives - Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you are looking for corn lesson plans for preschoolers, I have a plethora of corn-y ideas for all the subjects to share with you. Also, you’ll love my pages How to Homeschool Preschool and Fall Season Unit Study {Pumpkins, Leaves, Corn, & More}.

Choose the lesson plans and activities that you like from the list.

Then put them together to create your custom unit study as short or as long as you like.

There are options for science, math, history, and language arts ideas.

How to Create a Paper Bag Corn Craft | 10 Corn Lesson Plans For Preschoolers

Corn has a long history from when it was first domesticated by native peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago.

Then the native Americans passed it on to newcomers and throughout modern history.

Today, it is used in a wide variety of applications.

For example, corn meal, corn starch, corn syrup, tortillas, hominy, cooking oil, ethanol, adhesives, and much more.

We are much more dependent on corn than we realize.

Corn has become the most widely grown crop in the western hemisphere.

History and Uses of Flint Corn

You know the beautiful multicolored ears of corn you find in the fall?

That is Flint Corn or Indian corn.

Flint corn is used for ornamental purposes, but it is also used for semolina flour, popcorn, and as a high-quality feed grain.

The flint corn plant grows wild.

Thousands of years ago it was domesticated so that its ears were larger.

And it became important to the diet of the natives of that area.

It looked much different back then than it does now.

Explorers took corn back with them and spread it throughout the world and it now grows primarily in Central and South America.

Before you dig into lesson plans, pick up a few books to pore over.

Learning About Corn Books

6 Books About Corn and Resources for Multiple Ages

Books for kids who want to learn about corn.

Corn Is Maize: The Gift of the Indians

With simple prose and beautiful illustrations, award-winning author-illustrator Aliki tells the story of how Native American farmers thousands of years ago found and nourished a wild grass plant and made corn an important part of their lives. They learned the best ways to grow and store and use its fat yellow kernels. And then they shared this knowledge with the new settlers of America.

Corn

Find out everything about this versatile and important grain—its history as a crop, the four main types, and how we grow and use it to make everything from food to paper to medicine!

From Kernel to Corn (Start to Finish, Second Series)

How does a corn seed become corn on the cob? Follow each step in nature's cycle―from planting to picking and eating―in this fascinating book!

Glass Gem Cherokee Indian Corn, Flint Corn 100 Seeds

GROW. For the best results, it's essential to cover your seeds with about one inch of soil and tamp down firmly before watering lightly.You can plant your seeds in either rows or hills. If you are planting them in rows, plant one seed every 4 inches in rows that are 18 to 24 inches apart.

Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life

Learn the difference between a farrow and a barrow, and what distinguishes a weanling from a yearling. Country and city mice alike will delight in Julia Rothman’s charming illustrated guide to the curious parts and pieces of rural living. Dissecting everything from the shapes of squash varieties to how a barn is constructed and what makes up a beehive to crop rotation patterns, Rothman gives a richly entertaining tour of the quirky details of country life.

The Story of Corn: It Starts with a Seed

How does a seed become a yummy ear of corn? A farmer plants seeds. The seeds change into plants. Plants grow. Soon cobs grow on the plants. Learn about the life cycle of corn step by step.

Next, look at these corn lesson plans for preschoolers.

10 Corn Lesson Plans For Preschoolers

Check out this Fun Corn Life Cycle Preschool Sensory Bin and Printable Life Cycle Foldout for a lesson plan that is truly hands-on and enjoyable.
This Sprouting Indian Corn is a wonderful activity to observe and record over a few weeks as it sprouts and can even be planted to grow your own and observe the life cycle firsthand.
Try my Popcorn Science Mini Unit Study Which Brand Pops the Best as a fun-at-home idea but it also works for science fairs or co-op presentations as well.
Investigate an ear of corn while Learning About the Parts of Corn Using Montessori Printables.
This Corn And Popcorn Fall Science & Sensory Play For Kids comes with a free printable and a whole host of activity ideas for completing it from weighing and measuring to counting and density tests.
Grab an inexpensive bag of candy corn and do this Fun Candy Corn Stem Activity Which Liquid Dissolves Candy Corn Faster, don’t forget to snack on some while you are conducting your experiment.
This Geronimo Stilton Field Trip to Niagara Falls Summary And Fun Corn Craft is a great way to learn about Native Americans who lived along Niagara Falls for a fantastic history slant.
With this DIY Native American Corn Meal activity, you can grind your own cornmeal and then use it in a recipe, this gives kids a small idea of how much work went into grinding corn by hand.
If you want to focus on Indian/Flint corn don’t forget to include a tasty snack like these Mini Indian Corn Treats.
This Corn Maze Numbers Math activity is a wonderfully creative idea for incorporating some math skills into your lesson plans.

How to Create a Paper Bag Corn Craft

This craft idea is inexpensive and quite easy, making it a great preschool craft.

You will need:

A paper bag
Paper plate
Craft paint- green craft paint
Round sponge stamper
Something to stuff the bag- newspaper, construction paper, tissue paper, etc.
Rubber band

First, cut strips ⅓ of the way down from the top opening of the bag, you can make them as thin or thick as you like this will create the top husk.

Paint the husks and a border all around the bag green.

You can either lay it flat or open it over you hand and paint it so that you can get the sides and the opposite side of the bag as well.

Use a paper plate so it’s easier to clean up the mess later and make it like a paint palette with dabs of paint in whatever colors you like.

I went with a colorful flint/Indian corn variety.

Stamp all over the bag on the inside of the green husk you painted with your colors. If you don’t have the round stampers, you can use fingerprints pressed into the paint, q tips, or a pencil eraser to make dots.

Let the bag dry completely and stuff the inside with napkins, tissue paper, or whatever you are using.

Gather the top just below the green husk and close it by wrapping a rubber band around it a few times.

Squeeze and move the bag around to give it more of a corn shape.

Your little ones will be so excited to get their hands on this corn life cycle preschool printable and sensory bin. Also, you’ll love my page Fall Season Unit Study {Pumpkins, Leaves, Corn, & More}.

The sensory bin and foldout are both great ways to learn about corn, its life cycle, the different parts, terminology, and even the different ways we can enjoy or use corn.

My printable shows your preschooler how corn grows in all its stages from planting to harvest in a simple and fun fold-out that they can color.

Fun Corn Life Cycle Preschool Sensory Bin and Printable Lifecycle Foldout

Then the perfect hands-on activity to go along with your corn life cycle preschool printable is a fun corn-themed sensory bin that they can dig into.

Items We Get From Corn

We get a lot of products that we use every day from corn.

This is a great time to talk about that with your child while they color in their fold-out or dig into the sensory bin.

To get you started here is a list of some of the things that corn makes:

Corn on the Cob
Canned Corn
Corn meal
Grits
Corn Syrup
Corn Chips Cornstarch
Crayons
Toothpaste
Popcorn

Also, look at more preschool corn activities.

More Corn Life Cycle Preschool Activities

I grabbed one of my favorite resources and both Farm and Food Anatomy had a page on corn, including the parts of the corn plant, varieties, and fun facts.

These are great to have out while your child explores the sensory bin.

Food Anatomy is even great for preschoolers with its pretty illustrations and small snippets of information that will keep them interested

And Farm Anatomy is always a great reference for farm and food-related topics.

Make popcorn to enjoy together for a healthy and delicious snack that ties right into the lesson.

To incorporate some early math skills you can also add a die to the corn sensory bin to have your child roll a number and count out the coordinating amount of corn kernels.

Add 2 for older children and they can practice addition and subtraction using the kernels as a manipulative.

Explore different corn products with your child, placing some items from the list above for your child to look at and investigate.

Teach your preschooler how to shuck corn, not only is it a great idea for dinner but it helps develop your child’s fine motor skills.

Follow the directions to print and cut out the corn life cycle printable, let your child color their corn images before cutting them out.

This Dancing Corn Experiment is a fun science activity that requires very little prep or setup and will fascinate your child.

Incorporate math skills like number recognition and fine motor skills with the Preschool Corn Counting Activity.

Corn Activities to Include Older Children

In addition, here are a few activities to include about corn for older your children.

Finally, look at some ideas for corn preschool sensory bin.

Corn Life Cycle Preschool Sensory Bin

For the sensory bin you will need:

A shallow container, preferably with a lid
Whole feed corn
Spoons and scoops
Small containers
Corn toys

Start by pouring corn into your shallow container a couple of inches deep,

I found this perfect-sized container at my dollar tree. You can even use a baking pan or sheet to hold your sensory bin materials.

You can find whole-feed corn at your local feed store (Tractor Supply, Rural King, and even Walmart).

If you can’t find it you can use popcorn or cracked corn that is sold for feeding birds in its place.

Add a few scoops and spoons, as well as a container or two for filling and pouring for fine motor development and hand-eye coordination-important prewriting skills.

If you have a preschooler chances are that you have some pretend food in their toys, chances are also good that there is some corn in the mix.

Grab it and add it to the sensory bin, you can also get real corn shucked and unshucked but if you have a child who is very sensory and likes to taste everything you might want to skip using real corn.

We had several plastic corns on the cobs as well as a pretend can of corn and a corn from this Safari Fruits and Vegetables Toob .

Add flashcards or small photos of corn, I did a quick watercolor to put in our sensory bin.

You can also add letters to spell out corn using Scrabble tiles or letter beads to help your child with word and beginning letter recognition.

Finally, pop in your corn life cycle printable.

Set your bin up, you may want to put a sheet or shower curtain liner underneath to catch the mess for an easy cleanup.

Finally, look below to see how to download the corn life cycle foldout.

Free Corn Life Cycle Printable Foldout

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corn