Mat times at Buckle My Shoe are full of a variety of songs, games, stories and opportunities to extend our little ones’ understanding of the real world around them.

One of our wonderful kaiako brought along some corn that she had grown in her garden to her mat time and as soon as our little ones sat on the mat, they were curious and eager to have a closer look.

The full plant was presented to them – stalk, husks and all. Our tamariki were not familiar with seeing corn like this and were interested in the different parts of the plant.

“Who likes corn?”, she questioned and most of our tamariki raised their hand. Together they discussed what things are made from corn – like popcorn and very quickly the conversation turned to how to make popcorn with salt and butter. Yum Yum! 😋

Each of our little ones were then given their own cobs to peel and were asked the question, “What colour is your corn?”. This seemed like an odd question, but our little ones went straight in, using their finger muscles to pull back the husk and uncover their piece of corn.

Wow, did some of our tamariki get quite a shock. Instead of uncovering yellow corn, they were holding black, red and multicoloured corn – referred to as stained glass or flint corn. “Can we eat it?”, one of our tamariki questioned. Probably not! Although stained glass corn is technically edible, it does not taste very nice and is quite hard, so you would probably stick to yellow corn!

We then displayed the different types of corn in our classroom so that all our tamariki could have the opportunity to take a closer look! 😊