Preschoolers use popcorn to add blossoms to painted cherry trees. Distribute blue construction paper, brown and green poster paint, paintbrushes, glue and popped popcorn. Demonstrate how to make a tree trunk with the brown paint. Use the green paint to create leaves. The children place the popcorn on the trees with glue. Allow the glue to dry before hanging the pictures for display. Modify this activity by letting the children design a field of flowers. Distribute yellow construction paper, green paint, paintbrushes, glue and popped popcorn. Tell the children to paint green stems and leaves. Glue popcorn to the stems.
Talk about different ingredients added to flavor popcorn and ask the children if they have a favorite. Show the children several dry ingredients used to flavor popcorn. Examples of dry ingredients include ranch dressing mix, cinnamon, sugar, and dry cheese. Pop several batches of popcorn with a hot air popper. Allow the popcorn to cool. Let the children divide the popcorn into several zippered plastic bags. Pour a small amount of melted butter over the popcorn in each bag. Add a different dry ingredient to each bag of popcorn and close the zippers. Tell the children to shake the bags. Let the children sample each flavored popcorn. Ask each child to indicate a favorite flavored popcorn. Graph the children's responses and talk about the results.
Share a book with the children such as, "Why Does Popcorn Pop?", by Catherine Ripley, or, "The Popcorn Book," by Tomie dePaola. Show the children an ear of popcorn, a container of unpopped popcorn, and a container of popped popcorn. Encourage the children to talk about how the forms of popcorn differ. Place a large piece of butcher or poster paper on the floor. Place a hot air popper in the middle of the paper and let the children observe the popcorn pop. Let the children eat the popcorn.
Bring popcorn, a popcorn popper, butter, marshmallows, raisins and gumdrops to the activity area. Pop popcorn and follow the directions for making crispy rice cereal treats. Ask the children to take one small handful and one larger handful of the mixture. The children roll the mixture into balls and put the smaller ball on top of the larger ball. Use the raisins to make the snowman's eyes and buttons. Make a gumdrop hat. Place the children's snowmen on waxed paper and chill in a refrigerator for 30 minutes.