Educational Activities for Popcorn Month

October is popcorn month. I love popcorn, especially movie theatre popcorn.... but there are some amazing ways to use popcorn in the classroom. As a TTOC this is a sure way to be memorable (but still educational) Similarly, I have used candy hearts as BINGO markers on Valentines day and other food items for learning.

This awesome site posted this:

• Use kernels for an estimation activity.  FirstGradeParade posted this and included cute little autumn-themed, printable cards for students to estimate how many popcorn kernels will fit on it.  After they estimate, they count the kernels to see how close their guess was.
• Have students describe popcorn using as many adjectives that come to mind.  Here is Room-Mom101's take on BabblingAbby's adjective activity.
• Challenge students to create a box that holds the most popcorn.  Fawnnguyen did this activity for sixth-graders studying volume.
• Make a popcorn book club discussion.  This is also an idea from FirstGradeParade, complete with printable discussion-starters.  Students discuss their books and eat popcorn.
• Create popcorn writing by crumpling up popcorn-shaped papers with characters and settings written on them.  Students randomly choose the papers and write a story using the elements written on their papers.  This comes from ApplestoApplique and is similar to my Build-A-Story activity, but with a popcorn theme!

Popcorn - Spelling Game

Today I was reading an old spiral bound book of games. I used to teach summer camps and afterschool programs at the local recreation centre and know A LOT of games....

This is one I had played years ago and forgotten about but plan to pull-out and use again.

It is called "POPCORN" and you give each student a letter of the alphabet. If you don't have 26 students (first, lucky you!) then you could probably cut some less used letters or give a few students two letters.

It is easy to play - you say a word and they spell it!

Everyone is sitting down and when it is their letter they "POP" up and say their letter.

For example:

Teacher: The word is Friend
Student with letter f: "F" *pops up then back down
Student with letter r: "R" *pops up then back down
Student with letter i: "I" *pops up then back down
Student with letter e: "E" *pops up then back down
Student with letter n: "N" *pops up then back down
Student with letter d: "D" *pops up then back down

This is a fun spelling game that also gets students active.