Native American Corn Muffins

CA Standards--Third Grade

• 3.1 History--Native Americans
• Physical sciences--Stored energy taking up many forms such as food (Foss Matter/Energy).
• Math--Multiplication commutative property; estimation

Materials

Use dried corn cobs from grocery store in floral or vegetable section; available between Halloween-Thanksgiving. Use an old electric coffee grinder or a really good blender like a Vitamix. This is hard on the blades.

• Dried corn cobs
• Ingredients for recipe including muffin tins, bowls, measuring cups/spoons
• PAM
• Ziplock bags
• Coffee grinder

Procedures

Prep work prior to lesson: Place dry ingredients, minus the cornmeal, in ziplock bags. One per group. Bring wet ingredients separately and add at step 6.

1. Short discussion of the objectives above. Depending on how much time you have you can read through the recipe and talk about how it is broken into different sections ie ingredients, directions, etc.
2. Hold up a corn cob and talk about how the kernel is a seed and will grow an entire new plant. Describe how corn grows pretty easily in a lot of different places/soils.
3. Remove approximately 50 kernels from the corn cob and give some to each child. Can allow them to take off a few kernels but it isn’t very easy for younger kids.
4. Have them count 50 kernels exactly. Use those as manipulatives for the worksheet. Use kernels as an example yourself to show that 20+4=4+20 or 4x6=6x4 for older students.
5. Grind kernels in coffee grinder and mix with corn meal.
6. Add to pre-prepared mix and bake muffins.