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Frank Asch’s book Popcorn is a classic Halloween story about a bear named Sam who throws a Halloween party when his parents go out for the night. All of his friends bring popcorn as a snack and trouble starts when they decide to start popping it. This book was a favorite of mine when I was younger and I have already read it to my 15 month old daughter several times. There are a lot of ways that parents can use this quick and enjoyable book to provide their children with memorable experiences, learning opportunities and popcorn fun.

Use popcorn to build memories with your kids!

Make Popcorn – Use an air popper or cook it on the stovetop or over a campfire to make it even more of an experience. However you choose to make your snack, create a popcorn bar with a variety of mix-ins to make each person’s snack even more personalized.

Descriptive Language – While eating popcorn with your kids, have them use their senses to describe how the popcorn tastes, feels, smells, sounds and looks. Write a list of all of the descriptive words you come up with. Have older kids use a thesaurus to come up with new words.

Fine Motor Practice – Fill a bowl with popped popcorn. For younger children, have them use tongs or chopsticks to pick up pieces of popcorn and put them into another bowl. For older kids, make this a contest and see who can pick up more pieces of popcorn in a given amount of time, only using chopsticks.

Sensory play – Popcorn can be a fun and different sensory experience for kids. Fill a sensory table or bin with popcorn kernels or popped popcorn, and let kids use their hands, cups, or spoons to play with it.

Counting – For young kids, have them count pieces of popcorn, or sort pieces into groups of 5s or 10s.

There are so many fun (and delicious) ways to use popcorn to teach your kids. Next time you are looking to make a fun snack, consider using one of these ideas and reading this book!

Feel free to share photos of your popcorn adventures in the comments!