The Pumpkin Project

So my school is literally across the street from a pumpkin patch. We could walk there in 2 minutes. But, I don't take my students for one reason: money. I don't have enough money to take my entire class to get a pumpkin. So, instead we have pumpkin day! I had an amazing grandmother buy each child in my class a small pumpkin so that we could experiment with what a pumpkin was and what it can do. We called it The Pumpkin Project.Usually, when I do not have a generous grandmother I get one pumpkin per table and students investigate in small groups.

This is a picture of one of my students investigating her pumpkin.
1. Observe the pumpkin (we drew pictures).
2. Decide if the pumpkin is big, medium or small.
3. Count how many lines the pumpkin has (I drew a black line so students knew where to start and stop counting).
4. Put the pumpkin in water and see if it sinks or floats.
5. Measure the pumpkin with unifix cubes.
6. Draw what kind of face they wanted on their pumpkin.

I have another version of this where they cut the pumpkin open and count the seeds. That seemed like too much for my TKs.

This picture is of Version 2 of the Pumpkin Project. Version 1 has the seed counting option.

Grab Version 1 and Version 2. Enjoy!

Bats and Pumpkins!

Halloween is in full swing in Kindergarten. We have been working, creating and learning new and silly songs. One of the first crafts we made was our bat hat. It is too cute.

When the kids finish and put it on we all walk around saying, "So and so....you have a bat on your head!" They crack up all day long. Here is the template for the hat. I recommend poster board or card stock for the wings so they stand out.

What else are we doing? Pumpkins! We have been learning about pumpkins all week. We have even entered the PTA Pumpkin Decorating Contest. I have yet to think of a good idea, but when I do I will post it.

Here is our bulletin board outside my classroom. Cute huh?

This is a page in our daily journals. We are working on capital letters, spacing and punctuation. Students have cut apart sentences (GRAB here!!) and they have to glue the sentence in their journal. Then they write the sentence, following all the rules, and then they draw a picture.

 

We learn the poem 5 Little Pumpkins and act out the poem with puppets. My students have it memorized in about 3 tries. I got these puppets at Michaels.

We make a 5 Little Pumpkins craft with popsicle sticks. I have them glue the poem on it so they can read it at home with their families. Grab the 5 Little Pumpkin craft here.

And of course, the paper plate pumpkin. We painted the plate and added a face to it, then did the life cycle on the back. To get the life cycle pieces go to my Pinterest Fall Activities Board.


We have a lot more Halloween fun to go !

Pumpkin Reader

Here is a quick freebie!

My Big Orange Pumpkin reader is a cute activity to go along with your pumpkin unit. We are learning how to follow along with our "reading finger" and reading the sight words. Grab it here.