Crazy About Pumpkins
We have been enjoying FALL BREAK!
I don't know about you, but it couldn't of come any sooner! I did not travel anywhere, but opted for a nice relaxing week at home catching up on Netflix and house cleaning!
The students returned to school this Thursday!
Hmm... what shall we do with a 2 day school week?!
How about a PUMPKIN Unit and a FIELD TRIP!?
Sounded GREAT to me!
Here are the Pumpkin activities we participated in:
When the students entered the classroom I had a pumpkin sitting on their group tables! I had already "gutted" out the pumpkins, washed the seeds, and placed the seeds in a bag inside the pumpkin! (This way there would be no mess!) My own 2 children had a GRAND time doing this work for me over our Fall Break!
I gave each group this worksheet along with some very detail directions!
They had to find the height of their pumpkin, count their seeds by groups of tens, count the lines, predict and test whether their pumpkin would sink or float, and I also had them find the circumference of their pumpkin (even though it was not on this worksheet)!
WHEW...they had a lot of work to do!
(Above) The students are measuring the height of their pumpkins using cubes! This lead us the debate of "Should we measure to the top of the stem or just to the top of the pumpkin?"
It took us a LONG time to count all those seeds! I gave the groups some small plastic cups so they could make groups of 10! Then when all groups were sorted, they were not sure how to count that high by tens so we discussed how 10 groups of tens creates 1 group of 100. Then we counted by 100, then by tens, and then the ones! Place value lesson anybody! HA .... and the students didn't even know I was prepping them for things to come! LOVE IT!
My kiddos were SHOCKED when the pumpkin did not sink! This was their favorite part of the investigation! We even tested smaller pumpkins, white pumpkins, and a green pumpkin just to see if it changed the results. They ALL floated!? The students had to write an opinion piece later that day of WHY they think pumpkins float!
Now what do we do with these pumpkins?
I had my students vote on which pumpkin our class wanted to carve. We had 5 pumpkins to choose from! I gave each student a little sticker and asked them to go place the sticker in front of the pumpkin we wanted to carve. We discussed how many votes each pumpkin received, and announced our winning pumpkin!
Now .... how should we carve our new pumpkin friend?
We voted again for how we should carve
the eyes, the nose, and the mouth! Each student received a ballot. I collected the ballots and took them home. I carved the pumpkin at home and had our new friend in our classroom the next morning to greet my students!
MEET PUMPKIN JACK!
Now what do we do with all these seeds?
Let's create our own Pumpkin Patch!
The kiddos loved planted their own seeds!
We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin while I allowed each student to go plant their own seed in our Pumpkin Patch!
Then we received our Science Logs! One side has us observing and noting changes in our pumpkin patch, the other side has us observing and noting changes to Pumpkin Jack! We will document on these logs up until Halloween (as long as Pumpkin Jack doesn't start to stink)!
Roasting Pumpkin Seeds
We still had a TON of pumpkin seeds left over .... so I took them home and roasted them! YUMMY!
I brought them back so that the students could try them and then we would record some data!
I was SOOOO happy that all but 1 of my students liked the pumpkin seeds! How neat .... kids actually liking a healthy snack!! Check out our data!
Field Trip Day
Don't you just LOVE field trip days! I love seeing the kiddos SO excited to go somewhere with all their friends! BUT GOODNESS .... it wears me out! I think I'm on the edge of my seat ALL day praying nothing goes wrong and everything turns out great and when it is ALL over ..... I CRASH! So glad this field trip fell on a Friday!
We visited Discovery Park of America which is a great resource we have close to home!
Visit their website here: http://www.discoveryparkofamerica.com/
We had a BLAST!
Here is a class picture of us at the end of the day!
(IMPOSSIBLE to get all 19 kiddos looking at the camera of course)
Make sure to follow my BLOG to keep up with all of our upcoming Halloween activities and 50's Day!
