Hoppin' Popcorn...Some Crunchy Learning at our house!

Who doesn't love popcorn?  Well, we REALLY love popcorn!  We eat popcorn several times a week.  Sometimes with just butter and salt.  Other times with Junior Mints thrown in while it's still hot!  Delish!  When I saw Download N Go's Hoppin' Popcorn Unit Study, I knew we had to do it.  As with all Download N Go Unit Studies, this study is laid out in a five day format.

We often take up to two weeks to complete each unit study, but did complete this one in a week.   The basic outline for this study is as follows:

Day 1: Popcorn -- What Is It?

Day 2: The Story of Popcorn

Day 3: The Flavors of Popcorn

Day 4: The Science of Popcorn

Day 5: Fun With Popcorn

We often cook in our homeschool.  I have found this to be such an effective way to work on math skills without the children even knowing.  With Hoppin' Popcorn we were able to cook A LOT!  We even had a popcorn taste test.  We made regular popcorn, caramel corn, popcorn nachos, chocolate corn and kettle corn.  We tasted with blindfolds, determined our own favorites and polled others for their favorites. We also made our own butter for our popcorn, which was a big hit too. (Sorry, no pictures...my camera has crashed and is being repaired.  If my pictures make it, I'll post them later!)

One of my favorite parts of this lesson was having the children check the weather in different states each day.  While this seems like a simple task, the children found it more difficult than I expected the first day. I often overlook the "search" portion of  the kids computing time since I am so cautious about what websites they are on.  This was a good lesson to all of us that they need to be able to do their own searches.  I allowed them to use www.safesearchkids.com which is powered by Google and has great filters.  The process of "finding" a good weather site took a couple of tries, but they got it.  Since it was included each day, however, they were checking the weather EVERYWHERE by the end of the week! 

The only thing I would change about this unit study is that I would have loved to have done it in the fall. While my children have been to a corn maze, it would have been neat to be able to do that while doing this study.  And while we did make the popcorn ball bird feeders, they probably would have been better utilized (by the birds) in the fall.

Overall, I think you will find this unit study fun and informative.  While it might not have gone into as much depth as some of the other studies, my kids kept telling me it was one of their favorites.  It's also a great way to "force" yourself to step away from the schoolbooks and have some fun while learning!  My girls were certainly delighted!

Take a look at Amanda Bennett's other Unit Studies as well...you just can't go wrong with Download N Go!!!

Finally, I have a copy of this fun unit study to GIVE AWAY!!!   All you have to do is any of the following:
(Up to 3 entries per person. Please post a comment for each entry...if it's #2 or #3, please include a link!)
1. Follow my blog.
2. Share my Hoppin' Popcorn post on Facebook or Twitter.
3. Share my Hoppin' Popcorn post on YOUR blog.

I will announce the winner on Tuesday, March 8th!

Peace and Blessing upon your day!

Kim