A Favorite Snack

All of the students have tasted popcorn.  Popcorn is easy to make and can be a healthy treat.  Most people make popcorn in the microwave.  The second grade students in Ms. Rosas's and Mrs. Harder's small group reading groups learned more about the favorite snack.

First we read the book Popcorn by Tomie dePaola.  We learned that in early times people made popcorn by either throwing it into the fire directly or by placing an ear of corn on a stick and waiting for it to pop.  The students agreed that this didn't sound like a very good idea.  An alternative method was placing the corn in a clay pot.  The clay pot was then surrounded by hot sand.  The popcorn would then be easy to eat.

The book said that popcorn should be kept in the refrigerator so that the kernels of corn wouldn't dry out.  It suggested that there would be fewer "old maids" of the popcorn was kept cool.  Our popcorn hadn't been kept in the refrigerator, so we were going to check at the end of the popping to see how many "old maids" we had in our bowl.  

There are many different kinds of popcorn, but we had yellow popcorn.  The color of the kernel doesn't affect the color of the corn once it is popped.  Popped corn is always white.

As you can tell by the picture, the students were amazed to see the popcorn exploding from the hot air popper.  We then sampled the popcorn.  The students said that the popcorn didn't taste like what they eat at home.  Our popcorn didn't have butter or salt.  The students still enjoyed the treat.  

The students then wrote a journal entry about the experience.  Shawn urged everyone that they should purchase their own hot air popper at Walmart!  Conner's favorite part was when the popcorn exploded from the machine!  

As you can see, we all had a lot of fun learning about popcorn.