Crazy about Candy Corn - Books, Links, and Ideas for Children

We've been having quite a bit of fun with candy corn, this week (click here, to see some of our candy corn inspired projects).

Did you know that October 31st is National Candy Corn Day? I didn't, until the Fryman Four put us onto it. They actually had an entire day of candy corn fun, last year (click here, to read about that).

After researching all the great, kid-friendly, candy corn projects, links, and goodies out there, I'm really thinking the entire month of October, should be dedicated "National Candy Corn Month".

I had a hard time finding non-Halloween themed, books about candy corn, though. Keven Henkes' Julius's Candy Corn, that we read for our stART project, came close. The party the cupcakes are for is a Halloween party, but other than that one mention of the holiday, the book could be about any fall party. It's really about Julius, and the candy corn.

My children rejected Kelly Asbury's Candy Corn, because it is a board book, and because it contains (non-scary) witches, and vampires, but if you have a toddler, who doesn't mind Halloween imagery, then this is a cute book about finding triangles, on Halloween night.



The Candy Corn Contest, by Patricia Riley Giff centers around a pre-Thanksgiving contest, in a school classroom. I didn't read it myself, but my 9 year old, read it with ease during "nap time", and seemed to really enjoy it. In the book the children get to make a guess on the number of candy corn in a jar, for each page they read in a book. The child with the closest guess, is to win the entire jar of candy. Which is fine, until the main character sneaks three, only to discover his teacher has already counted the candy, and written the answer on the bottom of the jar..in pen.

This book begs for extension exercises, and in fact, Scholastic has a link to a teacher's website, with an entire unit built around the book.

After completing The Candy Corn Contest, A (age 9) has move on to Ben M. Baglio's Kitten in the Candy Corn. It's number #41 in the Animal ARK series, which centers around a young girl, and her best friend (a boy), who like to help the animals they encounter through her parents veterinarian clinic. In this particular story, they must find a little kitten a home, after it arrives at the clinic, with a box of candy corn.

The story takes place around Halloween, but is centered on the story of the kitten, more than on the holiday.



Finally, I checked out Candy Corn Poems by James Stevenson. Sadly, it only contains one short poem about candy corn, but after reading, and watching How to Train Your Dragon, the children enjoyed the Stevenson's comparison of candy corn to dragon's teeth.



I thought the comparison was fitting too, especially after a math post, at Little Page Turners, where candy corn became dinosaur teeth.

Teach-nology, also has a candy corn, poetry lesson plan suggestion, here.

If it's history, you want, you might check out one these short videos on the history of candy corn, and how it's made from:

The Louisiana Farm Bureau

The Food Network,

or The History Channel

And, for even more candy corn fun, there are all kinds of printables, and craft ideas available:


Kinder Printables has a wealth of candy corn theme pages, such as candy corn alphabets, math mats, counting, and matching sheets.

Mrs. Nelson's Class has similar, but different candy corn printouts too, as well as a cut, and glue template, good for groups of children, and a number of additional fall theme ideas.

Lee Hanson Graphics has candy corn, and bat bookmarks.


DLTK-holidays has a cut, and glue together candy corn man.

Layton Music has a candy corn, musical note, match up game.

Still need more candy corn inspired ideas? Then you might want to check out Candy Corn Wonderland! an entire website dedicated to all things candy corn.

Of course, if you really don't care for candy corn, you can print out the lyrics to Nick Jr's Moose and Zee "I Don't Like Candy Corn" song.

And, then click the links below, to find out what others have been reading, at this week's What My Child is Reading blog hop, hosted by Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fun And Games For National Candy Corn Day

Happy National Candy Corn Day!

Even now it's not too late to throw together a few fun ideas for the holiday.

We celebrated this afternoon with a pull-string candy corn pinata...


...filled with the candy corn finger puppets I posted about earlier, and little goodie bags with an assortment of store bought candy corn, at least as good an assortment as I could get my hands on, and some tiny, crunchy, candy corn cookies I made myself out of sugar cookie dough.


The goodie bags were just sealable sandwich bags I had on hand...


...folded in half, as shown, over the treats...


...twisted shut...


...tied tightly with pieces of yellow, orange and white yarn...


...and trimmed on top, to remove the "zipper" part.


The candy in the bags was for eating, but the rest of our supply of candy corn (what was left over, and the ones we've been using for math manipulatives all week) was set aside for games...


...like racing to see who could move the most candy corn from the table into a bowl in sixty seconds using a straw...


...or which team could be the first to blow a candy corn back and forth across the table ten times...


...or a relay game, where the children raced to fill small cups with candy corn, using a spoon to scoop up candy from bowls across the room, and taking turns with partners on their team. The first team to fill their cup was the winner.


Next on the docket is some homemade candy corn of course, and candy corn manicures for the girls.


I gave myself one this morning. You can find instructions for this type of nail art all over the Internet. It's pretty simple, just time consuming - a coat of white nail polish, a coat of yellow starting 3/4 of the way up the nail, a coat of orange just at the tip, a coat of glitter polish, and finally a clear coat protector, allowing each coat to dry completely before applying the next - probably not the wisest project to take on on a Sunday morning before church, but the girls in my Sunday school class thought it was pretty neat.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fall Leaf To-Do List 2015

It's a little earlier than normal for us to put up our fall leaf tree - listing all the things we'd like to do before the leaves fall.  We've already spotted several trees along our street with leaves changing colors though, so we decided to get a jump on fall, and have our tree all ready for the first day of September.

Per our normal tradition, we printed one item from our fall to-do list on each of the construction paper leaves on the tree. As we complete each item, we hope to mark it off by removing the leaf from the tree and sticking it to the wall around the base of the tree

Then, in November, as the tree is growing bare, we will have room to put up our "thankful turkeys", so by Thanksgiving we should be all set with a Peanuts-inspired turkey tree decorating the dining room.

Our list (below) morphed a bit this year, from early-elementary crafts and sensory experiments to be filled more heavily with art projects, family fun, and even a few handy-man type tasks around the house.

Movies to Watch on DVD or Amazon (that we think have fall release dates):
Cinderella
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Inside Out 
San Andreas 
Shaun the Sheep

Must Watch Fall Flicks:
It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Movies Coming Out in the Theater (that might like to see):
Mockingjay Part 2
The Peanuts Movie

 Activities:
Donuts on a String
Tree identification walk
Fall leaf art project
Make the first fire of the season in the fireplace
Attend a fall festival
Go to the last farmer's market of the season
Taste the first snow
Rake leaves
Jump in a leaf pile
Do a puzzle on a stormy day
Grandma's visit
Create a pine cone (snacktivity)
Go to the homecoming parade
Kick a football
Host a game night
Gut a pumpkin
Decorate the porch for fall.

Food:
Taste a Zucchini
Roast pumpkin seeds
Drink a pumpkin latte
Sample a pumpkin milkshake
Make a pumpkin pie from scratch
Bake pumpkin muffins
Bake apple muffins
Have pumpkin pie for breakfast
Make gingerbread men (for first snow)
Make owl cookies (first day of fall)
Make homemade candy corn (on National Candy Corn Day)
Eat a pear
Make caramel apples
Have an apple tasting

Celebrate:
Mom's birthday
Dad's birthday
Grandma's birthday
Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary!!!
Columbus Day
Canadian Thanksgiving (with a Peanuts' feast)
National Candy Corn Day

We have a few other personal milestones and around the house, honey-do type things, and plenty of room left on the tree for all the things we forgot, but will think of later.

Candy Corn Felt Finger Puppets

Do me a favor, and pretend the candy corn finger puppets pictured above are wearing their traditional yellow, orange and whites. I'm afraid there is not a scrap of yellow or orange felt to be found in anywhere in town, including my craft cupboard. So, I'll be telling the children these are chocolate gingerbread candy corn, like we made the other day.

My local merchants have really let me down. Not only are they not selling orange or yellow felt, I couldn't find a single bag of candy corn colored M&M's, or candy corn Hershey Kisses, or even much variety beyond the plain old, plain old regular candy corn. It seems the stores have completely skipped over National Candy Corn Day in favor of some other holiday that falls on the 31st.

It's a real bummer for me, since the children have already seen the candy corn pinata, it's hard to miss hanging over our dining room table, and are waiting in great anticipation to find out what kind of candy corn themed goodies are inside. It's been a bit of a scramble, but I've come up with a few things, like the finger puppets.

They are pretty basic. If you want to make your own, start by cutting a small candy corn shape out of thin cardboard (like the back of a cereal box). You can use your index finger as a guide for size.


Cut the cardboard candy corn apart into its three pieces.


Then, trace around the pieces on another piece of cardboard, allowing 1/8 inch or so, for a seam allowance.


Cut out the bigger pieces, and use those to trace out as many pattern pieces as you want to make, on paper. You will need two of each piece for each puppet you want to make.


Cut the paper pieces out, secure them to your felt, hopefully you have orange and yellow.


Cut them out again.


Stitch the pieces back together into candy corn shapes.




Then, sew two candy corn shapes, wrong sides together, leaving the bottom side open.


Use a clear drying, tacky glue to secure on google eyes and felt scrap mouths...


...and they're ready to play. Well, you might want to let the glue dry first, but you know...


...that's optional.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Homemade Chocolate Gingerbread Candy Corn

The snow in our forecast keeps getting pushed back day by day. I'm not sure if it's just the weathermen covering their bases, or if it really looks like snow is on the way.

When I checked news this morning, I noticed the snow has been moved to the 30th - National Candy Corn Day. And since we usually have a mini-gingerbread unit to celebrate the first snow of the season, I thought I should probably have some gingerbread candy corn ready just in case.

It took three tries modifying the candy corn recipe from HomemadeDessertRecipes.com, we normally follow, but I finally came on a candy corn that tastes slightly of gingerbread, and is child approved.

To make your own, follow the recipe linked above, but prepare three bowls for the step where you divide the dough into thirds, one that is empty, for the vanilla stripe, one that has 1/4 teaspoon molasses mixed with 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice and two drops each of yellow and red food coloring, and one that has about a teaspoon of unsweetened baker's cocoa for a chocolate stripe, because really if gingerbread candy corn is good, chocolate gingerbread candy corn has to be even better.




Then, proceed as per the original recipe. Snow or no snow, it's a pretty good fall treat. Young children won't be able to help with the first parts of the recipe, but they can use a butter knife to help cut the candy corn shapes, and they make for excellent taste testers.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Tiny Crunchy Candy Corn Cookies

Okay, I promise this is the last candy corn themed project I'll post about this fall - Scouts honor! Of course, I never made it past Brownies in Girl Scouts, so I'm not really sure that means much.

Actually, I had planned on moving on today anyway, but Ticia from Adventures in Mommydom commented on how small the candy corn cookies we had for National Candy Corn Day were, guessing they took hours to make. In reality, they took less than an hour, and only that long because I made two different batches, while watching an old episode of Star Trek on Netflix.

The trick is to make them pretty much the same way as regular candy corn, by rolling out ropes of dough on a floured surface, pressing the colors together in candy corn order, and slicing them back and forth into triangles with a floured butter knife. The only difference is instead of candy corn dough, use sugar cookie dough (click here for the recipe).

I divided the dough in half for ours, and then into thirds, adding food coloring to two thirds of one half for a traditional candy corn look, and baker's cocoa to one third, with about a teaspoon of molasses with a pinch of ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to the another for chocolate gingerbread corn.


Scoop them up gently with a spatula onto a greased cookie sheet, and bake them for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, until they are just starting to brown.


They will be quite crunchy, much like Teddy Grahams - only candy corn shaped.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

Candy Corn, Peanuts, Salted Nut Rolls, and a Venn Diagram

When I was in the grocery store checkout, buying candy corn for National Candy Corn Day (it's coming up this weekend, you know) and the woman behind me in line mentioned if you mix candy corn and peanuts together in a bowl to pop by handfuls at a time into your mouth, they taste exactly like Salted Nut Rolls, the first thing I thought was, "What a great opportunity for reviewing Venn diagrams!"

Okay, not really.  What I really thought is, "Well, now I need to buy some Salted Nut Rolls."

I really love Salted Nut Rolls.  If it weren't for their obscene amount of calories, they'd be my favorite snack.

But, after I mixed up a batch of candy corn and peanuts (which is not bad - in fact much better than a bowl of plain candy corn - but not exactly like Salted Nut Rolls), the children had a hard time agreeing in what ways it differed from the candy bars.

So...

...we (meaning I) traced out a quick diagram...

...so we (meaning they) could explore the ways the candy and nut treats were alike and different from the candy and nut bars.

In the end, while the ingredients of the two candies were, apart from sugar, corn syrup and artificial flavoring, significantly (or maybe that was slightly) different - and the textures and looks of the two were nothing alike...

...the taste might have been quite similar, if our candy bars, which were on the stale side (despite coming straight off the shelf) had been as fresh as our candy corn and peanuts.
 
For now, hoping to avoid sugar induced comas, we've tabled the discussion until next year when, if we can obtain a fresher sampling of the candy bars, we might take up the comparison again. 

Science and math are all about persistence and accuracy, after all.  Somebody has to take the fall, and eat the sugar.

Turkey Time

I can't believe we're already at the end of October. I realized with a start this week, it's time to start working on hand print turkeys for our thankful turkey tree, to count down to Thanksgiving. The ones pictured below are last year's, this year's flock is still a work in progress. In fact, I have a feeling we'll but cutting, tracing, and gluing them for most of today.


In the meantime, feel free to take a look back at some of our other turkey themed crafts and snacks from last year and the year before. I was a little flabbergasted at the sheer number of them, starting off with a pattern for a Crochet Turkey Finger Puppet. You can also find the pattern for his pale pilgrim pal, here, and a pretty pilgrim partner for him (the pilgrim not the turkey) here. But today, we're all about turkeys...


... like these poor beakless Hand print Turkey Window Glue-Clings. They were one of our early attempts at window glue-clings. I was concentrating on the glue, and totally forgot the beaks. I'm pretty sure I went back and added them, as soon as the Man of the House pointed out their absence though, so it was all good.


Don't forget the Homemade Candy Corn Turkeys. You better believe they're on my to-do list for tomorrow. What better way to transition from National Candy Corn Day on into November, than with candy corn turkeys...


...or maybe Paper Candy Corn Turkeys to match...


...Pillsbury inspired Candy Corn Turkey Cookies?


For some non-candy corn themed fun how about a Circle Turkey Craft, or maybe...


... a few Turkey Bean Bags? This guy's still being tossed around the house, as are the finger puppets from above.


Needless to say, the Turkey Sandwiches didn't last quite as long. Though I have a feeling they might be making another appearance this fall along with their friends...


... the Rice Krispies Turkey...


...Turkey Bread, and possibly even...


... the Turkey Toast.


Looking at the national forecast, I'd have to say some of you are likely to see Snowflake Turkeys before us this year. You never can tell about the weather.


If you're starting to feel overwhelmed don't worry, you're not alone.


Linda White's delightful sequel to Too Many Pumpkins is not a Thanksgiving story, but rather the tale of how one rural resident deals with the problem of too many turkeys in a way that not only saves his wife's garden, but beautifies his entire community. We'll be reading it today, if the Lord is willing, to go along with our flock of thankful turkeys.

Find out what other families have been reading by clicking over to the What My Child is Reading link-up hosted by Mouse Grows Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.