Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXX · Unit 7: Plants
30. Useful grains: wheat, corn and rice
Goal: Your child names the common grains, knows how wheat and corn grow and what they are used for, and writes about one grain.
You'll need
- A few grains to look at: wheat berries or a slice of whole wheat bread, popcorn or dried corn, an ear of corn if in season, oats, rice
- Flour
- A magnifying glass
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Wheat and corn are grains because they are small, hard seeds. The lesson describes spring and winter wheat, harvest, flour and straw; Indian corn (first raised by the Indians), with its stalk, tassels and ears; oats, barley, rye and buckwheat; and rice, grown in flooded fields. It closes with a verse, "We plow the fields, and scatter."
The lesson, step by step
What is a grain?
Read:
Wheat and corn are called grain because they are small, hard seeds.
Lay out the grains and look at them with the magnifying glass. Name each one.
Wheat
Read about wheat. Ask the book's questions: What color does wheat turn as it ripens? When it is ripe, what is done with it? What is flour used for? What is done with the straw?
Corn
Read about corn. Look at an ear of corn if you have one.
SayCorn was first grown by Native American peoples. That is why the book calls it Indian corn.
Ask: What is the corn's stem called? (the stalk) What are the flowers on top called? (tassels) On what do the grains grow? (the cob, inside the ear)
Other grains
Ask: What use is made of oats, barley, rye and buckwheat? Then read about rice. Ask: Why does rice grow in flooded fields?
Make a little flour
Optional: crush a few wheat berries or oats with a rolling pin in a plastic bag, or in a mortar and pestle, and compare with store flour.
The harvest verse
Read the verse at the end of the lesson.
We plow the fields, and scatter
The good seed on the land,
Many families know it as a harvest hymn.
Write
The book says to choose one grain and write what you have learned about it. Your child writes three or four sentences about wheat, corn or rice, and may draw it.
Afterwards
At meals this week, ask "Which grain is in this?" (bread, oatmeal, cornflakes, rice, popcorn, tortillas).
Tip
Long writes about "the Indians" as people did in 1894. Today we say Native Americans, or name the nation.
Answers to the book's problems
Other grains: oats, barley, rye, rice and buckwheat. Wheat makes the choicest flour. Wheat turns golden yellow as it ripens; then it is cut, threshed to get the grain out, and ground into flour, which is used for bread, cakes and crackers. The straw is used for animals' bedding, for hats and for packing. Corn is planted in spring after the land is plowed; while the plants are small the weeds are hoed out; it ripens in late summer and fall and grows taller than a man. Its stem is the stalk, the flowers on top are tassels, and the grains grow on the cob in the ear. The green stalks and leaves are fed to cattle; the ripe grain is used for cornmeal, for feeding animals, and for popcorn; in Long's day husks were used to stuff mattresses. An emblem is a sign or picture that stands for something. Oats make oatmeal and feed horses; barley is used in soups and for malt; rye makes rye bread; buckwheat makes pancakes. Rice needs a great deal of water, so it is grown in fields that can be flooded; the book mentions China and Japan, where rice is the chief food.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.