Candy Corn in the Kindergarten Classroom

What is more fun than bringing candy corn into your learning activities?! Nothing! As soon as my students see candy corn, they know the Halloween fun is about to begin!

I decided to gather up some creative candy corn favorites and share them here. Let me know how you use candy corn with your students at school or at home!

Candy Corn in a Ten Frame

Practice counting and number formation with candy corn. Use whatever ten frames you already have! The ten frames pictured are from my product Play Doh Mats, printed 2/page! It’s a lot of fun for students to use candy corn to fill in the ten frames to the corresponding numbers, working on number recognition and one to one correspondence in a very engaging way.

Class Graph of Favorite Candy or Yay or Nay for Candy Corn

Another kid favorite is to create a graph of favorite Halloween candy type, or if they do/do not like candy corn. My classes always love to talk about if they do or do not like any type of food, whether that be coconuts during our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme, pumpkins during our pumpkin theme, apples during our apple unit, etc.! If there is food involved and they can taste test and then vote, it’s a fan favorite and a great way to practice graphing skills. This also lends itself very well into a natural journal prompt for the day: I do/do not like candy corn because…

Candy Corn Shapes

Use candy corn to practice forming shapes, especially if you are working on learning the names for specific 2D or 3D shapes. For 2D shapes, consider keeping shape posters handy so that students can reference the shapes they are working on. For 3D shapes, if your students are ready for it, try using toothpicks and using the candy corn to link them together. Candy corn pumpkins would work well for this, too! (Shown is an emergent reader 2D shape book in my store called “I Know My Shapes”.)

Candy Corn as Game Pieces

This is maybe my favorite way to use them! While seasonal mini erasers are also a lot of fun, if I have candy corn in the classroom, it makes the most fun game tokens! Use with any game that needs tokens, like these Halloween Match Up Games or seasonal BINGO!

I used to be a candy corn, now I am a…

I’m not sure exactly who created this innovative writing prompt, but my fellow K teachers always did these for seasonal writing prompts and they turn out adorably! Simply type up “I used to be a candy corn, now I am a…” on a blank piece of paper and give each child one candy corn piece to glue on (or use a paper candy corn). Students then turn the candy corn into something completely new by creating an illustration that incorporates the original candy corn but makes it into something else. This also works for other seasons – candy canes, snowflakes, rainbow, etc.!

Candy Corn on black construction paper

My teaching partner taught me this one, and I love it! Take black construction paper and either copy a candy corn outline on it (but it can be really hard to see depending on your paper) or use white chalk to draw a candy corn outline with its middle sections outlined as well. Then, students practice tearing teeny bits of paper and gluing it onto their own candy corn! There are several freebie candy corn outlines online, or you can freehand it. Tearing little bits of paper is a great fine motor activity for your little learners, and I like this craft as a fun morning work activity.