Corn

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  Last October, I wrote about one of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water.  And last month, I wrote about another elemental material, namely, sand.

In this post, I write about corn, specifically feed corn.  Many years ago, I found myself in the feed section of a big hardware store.  I eyed a 50lb bag of feed corn and decided to try it in the sensory table.

Children are experts at exploring the materials in the sensory table.  Below, the child's exploration adds a little bit of knowledge about what is corn: how does it smell; how does it feel as she immerses her arms in the corn.

 

The corn in the sensory table is made up of many individual kernels.  Leave it to a child to find a hole in which to drop individual kernels.

 

Not only is this child exploring if the individual kernels fit in the small hole, he is also honing his fine motor skills by using a pincer grip to handle the individual kernels.

 

Below, the children experience how the corn exits the cardboard chute.  The child trying to catch the corn with the pink cup begins to understand that the corn does not exit the chute in a stream much like water or sand, but disperses helter-skelter.

 

It makes it a little harder to fill his cup, but or so much more fun.  And speaking of fun, how great it must feel to enjoy a "corn rain."

 

 

In their operations, the children are able to make a lot of good noise.  In the short video below, the children are creating a total aural experience as they all dump the corn down the big wardrobe box incline

 

 

Sometimes, I like to add actual corn cobs to the corn in the sensory table.  It may be hard to see, but below the child is using the handle of a small measuring cup to dislodge individual kernels of the corn.

 

Not only is she honing her fine motor skills, she problem solves to create a tool to help her extract the kernels from the cob.

Last year I wrote about strategies I used to make changes in the sensory table.  One strategy was to change the material in the table.  Below the children are using a dump truck to deposit a material into a hole.  The child on the left is dumping sand and the child on the right is dumping corn. 

 

Even though the children are doing the same exact operation, they are learning about the properties of each material.  That includes things like the difference in sound, weight and smell.  It is not that the children set out to find the differences.  Rather, their actions with the different materials add to an embedded knowledge about those differences.  

 Up next: wood pellets.