Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

Personally, I love pumpkins. They have such personality, and we had so much fun learning about them. It's a great pre-Halloween activity, when the kids are getting excited about the upcoming event, but we don't want to get them too hyped too early.

BOOKS

 The Pumpkin Blanket
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Five Little Pumpkins, Iris Van Rynbach
The Vanishing Pumpkin, Tony Johnston
Big Pumpkin, Erica Silverman
It's a Fruit, It's a Vegetable, It's a Pumpkin, Allan Fowler
Too Many Pumpkins, Linda White
Berenstain Bears & the Prize Pumpkin, Stan and Jan Berenstain
In a Pumpkin Shell (20+ projects for kids)
The Great Pumpkin Switch

ACTIVITIES

Pumpkin Math

 Bring a large pumpking to class for pumpkin math, using pumpkin books (cut out into shape of pumpkins, with a page for each math job:
  • Estimate and measure circumference (using orange crepe paper, they cut how much paper they thought it would take to wrap around the pumpkin, and then we each measured using another piece of crepe. They taped both pieces into their book).
  • Will the pumpkin float of sink?
  • Weight of pumpkin
  • Number of seeds - first we guessed and wrote in our guesses. Then we open up the pumpkin, and the students cleaned it. We counted the seeds into groups of 10, then counted by 10. We had 332 seeds!

    This picture didn't turn out great, but you can see the crepe paper sticking out!

    Seed activities
  • This activities didn't work for us, but I've heard that when it works it's great... I will try it again next year, I don't think our bags were in a sunny enough place. If you try it and it works, please let me know so I can fix what I did wrong!
    Plant the seeds in a ziploc bag with dirt and water. Zig tight, hang up. Seeds should open, roots grow down, and sprout up. The students could then take them home to plant. Good luck!
  • Roast the seeds to eat - I added salt, seasoning salt, and paprika, at baked them at 400 degrees for about 12 minutes.

    Math Activites
  • I divided a sheet into 10 squares, and wrote the numbers 1-10 on them. The students glued the appropriate number if seeds into each square.
  • Pumpkin patterns AB
  • Pumpkin counting - I wrote the numbers 1-12 on those small plastic pumpkins. The students put the correct number of popscicle sticks into each pumpkin.

    Art Activities
  • On a large sheet of mural paper, I had each student come paint some big pumpkins. They also added vines, leaves, and the occasional 'interesting shape' to the mural. I used this as the background on our bulletin board.
  • We stuffed a paper lunch bag with newspaper, and taped the top to make a stem. The students painted them orange, the stem brown or green and added a pumpkin face. A twist of green crepe paper at the top for a vine - voila!
  • We painted the mini pumpkins we bought on our class trip (keep reading!)
  • Pumpkin wind socks - each student brought in a juice can. We covered them in orange paper, glued in a green stem, and hung orange and green crepe paper from the bottom of the can. I punched two holes at the top of the can, and strung some yarn through to make a loop to hang the wind sock up. It was raining out that day, so we had to hang them in the class, but they would have looked great hanging in the tree outside!

    Language Experience
  • We took a class trip to the local grocery store. We looked at the fruits and vegetables and tried to decide if a pumpkin was either. Then we looked at all the gourds and discussed how a pumpkin was a type of gourd. It was great for them to see all the different gourds there. We compared the big pumpkins and the mini pumpkins, then each student got to pick out a mini pumpkin to keep. We made a class experience story of our trip after.
  • Brainstorm pumpkin words for our word wall.
    My pumpkin is _________.
    My pumpkin has ________.

    Journal-our trip to the grocery store

    Letters-P for Pumpkin, O for October, V for Vine

    SONGS AND POEMS

    Jack O' Happy
    This is Jack O' Happy
    This is Jack O' Sad
    Now you see him sleepy
    Now you see him mad
    This is Jack in pieces small
    Put in a pie he's best of all!

    I like to do a few activities with this poem, they really like it:
  • Sentence strips in a pocket chart, with pumpkin pictures to match each emotion.
  • I colored little felt pumpkins with each emotion to use on the felt board.
  • We carved a small Jack pumpkin,making a class graph to vote on the face he would have. After, we cut him into pieces and put him in a glass jar. I glued and taped the lid on, then he went in the science center so the students could watch what happens. Eeewwww....
    5 Little Pumpkins
    5 little pumpkins
    Sitting on a gate
    The first one said,
    "Oh, my, it's getting late!"
    The second one said
    "There are witches in the air!"
    The third one said
    "I don't care!"
    The fourth one said,
    "Let's run and run and run!"
    The fifth one said
    "I'm ready for some fun!"
    Then CRASH went the thunder
    And out went the lights
    And the five little pumpkins
    Rolled out of sight.

    I turned this into a big book, using die cut pumpkins, a fence, moon, and witch shapes.

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