Sensory activities in your home don’t have to be difficult. Sometimes the simplest sensory ideas are the ones that actually have many sensory benefits!
Having your children shuck corn is deceptively simple but offers a complex corn sensory table without them even knowing.
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Corn Sensory Table
A corn sensory table doesn’t have to be a formal event. And you certainly don’t need a sensory table, either! All you need is some newspaper (because you don’t want those corn silks all over the place) and a garbage bag to throw the husks into when you’re done playing.
In addition to being a great sensory experience, shucking corn is a wonderful way to feel like a contributor to the family. My kids love announcing at the dinner table that they did the corn all by themselves. It allows them to be a part of making dinner and instills a sense of pride in doing a good job that they then get to eat. Yum!
Tactile
Just stop and think of what an unbelievably tactile activity shucking corn can be. First, the husks are course and textured. The silk of the corn is soft and fluffy. The corn itself is hard and bumpy. The stem is rock hard and can feel sharp. Have your kids feel the different parts of the corn and tell you how each parts feel. See what kinds of adjectives they come up with to describe each part.
Fine Motor
Grasping each husk isn’t a simple job. You have to be able to pull apart the husks using fine motor skills just to grab one. Then you need to pull away the silks… and those suckers get everywhere!
Encourage your kids to do a good job cleaning the corn…. because the cleaner it is, the less of those silks will get stuck in their teeth when you cook them (the corn, not the kids!).
Hand Strengthening
Even if your little one doesn’t have the hand strength (yet) to pull down and off those husks, let her try. The practice of grabbing onto the husks are a terrific way to work those fingers and hands, helping strengthen them. (And hand strength can help when it comes to handwriting…. it’s not all about fine motor.)
Corn Sensory Activity
Now that the corn is shucked, feel free to dump it into a bin and let the kids play in it. Throw in some action figure or princesses and let them go to town. Your kids can have fun just free playing or give them some ideas… like how would we build a fort using the husks? Could we build a road? Can we count the husks? Can we divide them?
Any additional ideas of what else can we do with the husks?
LOVE IT. Totally true and such a good feeling to realize, hey, we GOT THIS (already!) 😉 – yay!
We use field corn that is already shucked. The kids work hard to remove the dried kernels from the cob. The sensory table gets higher and higher with corn. We leave the empty cobs is there so they can be people Etc. One of our most popular sensory tables!