Pumpkin Day Activities

Next Friday will be our 4th annual class Pumpkin Day. The ideas came from a colleague and friend of mine who served as my adopted mentor teacher during my first year of teaching kindergarten. During Pumpkin Day the kids will complete several reading, math and science stations that involve pumpkins. As the children rotate through the stations they will record their observations and results from their experiements. Since this is such an involved day, parent volunteers are a real asset. By having several adults in the room the kids stay on task more and the transitions run much smoother.

Reading Activities

• Read and color the book One Little Pumpkin (to the tune of Ten Little Indians)
• Act out the felt board story Five Little Pumpkins
• Listen to stories about pumpkins (both fiction and non-fiction).
• Use words cards to build informational sentences about pumpkins (ex: A pumpkin is orange. A pumpkin has seeds. A pumpkin can grow. )
• Write describing words about a pumpkin

Science/Math Activities

• Use your five senses to learn about the pumpkins (feel the inside and outside and tell how they are different, look at the color, smell the inside, and taste the roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pie)
• Estimate who weighs more: You or the pumpkin. Test your hypothesis by using a scale. Have a grown up at the station help you write the number. Then circle the number that is bigger. You can use a hundred chart to help you "see" which is bigger.
• Measure how big around a pumpkin is and compare it to your waist. First use a string to measure around each. Then use pop cubes to measure each string. Record the number and circle the number that is bigger.
• Use a balance beam to compare the weight of a small pumpkin to manipulatives (teddy bear counters, pop cubes, crayons, etc). Put one small pumpkin on one side of the balance beam and fill the other side with a manipulative. Make them balance. Then write the number to show how many of each manipulative you used to equal the weight of the pumpkin
• One to One corresponce counting game (making your bear counter hop a select number of spaces on the pumpkin patch game board.
• Counting Seeds (looking at a number and counting out that many seeds to match)

Crafts

• Pumpkin Sun Catcher

Please be aware that Pumpkin Day is not about Halloween. The focus will be on the fall harvest food. We have been studying about where pumpkins grow, the stages of growth, and what we can use pumpkins for. We have also talked about how the pumpkins that we generally see on Halloween night have been changed into a Jack-o-Lantern by carving or painting them.