Pumpkins!

I cannot believe it is NOVEMBER! I am so excited because 1). My dad came back from his deployment in Turkey! 2). It is fiiinally starting to cool down and feel like fall! 3). Only 2 1/2 weeks until Thanksgiving! 4). Then only 3 and a half weeks until Christmas break!! THIS IS MY FAVORITE TIME OF THE SCHOOL YEAR :)

We have pretty much wrapped up our pumpkin unit, and it's been fun! As I said in my last post, we did quite a bit with the basal last week (due to PT conferences) and read The Life Cycle of a Pumpkin and really focused on a pumpkin's life cycle!

This book is an amazing look at the life cycle, too!

We practiced sequencing by writing the about a pumpkin's life cycle using words like first, next, then, last, finally, etc. I forgot to take a picture, but we made the cutest craft to illustrate the life cycle of the pumpkin! Wish I had photographed it! Oh well :)

This week we observed, described, estimated, graphed and measured using a pumpkin (and pumpkin seeds) I brought to school.

We first observed the outside of a pumpkin and wrote down all of the adjectives we could think of to describe it. Then I carved the pumpkin open, and the kids to got to see, smell and feel the inside of the pumpkin! They LOVED it! Some thought it was nasty and would not touch it though :) Then we wrote all the adjectives about the inside of it. My kiddos completed a craftivity and had to write at least 3 sentences to describe the outside of the pumpkin and 3 to describe the inside. These turned out so stinkin' cute, and they were way into it!

 

Here is a photo of our pumpkin anchor chart (as well as our seed adjectives for Pumpkin Seed day!)

The next day was Pumpkin Seed Day! First we all got a few pumpkin seeds, and we had to look at, feel and taste them! We wrote adjectives on the giant seeds (see photo above) and we graphed whether we liked or disliked the taste of the seeds. We used Abby's cuh-yoot Pumpkin Seed Data and All About Pumpkin Seeds record sheets!  

That afternoon I read

 It is a great introduction to what it means to estimate! We looked inside our pumpkin and estimated how many seeds we thought were inside of it. Our estimates ranged anywhere from 12 to 101. My kiddos worked with their tables and had to make groups of ten.

After they finished counting their seeds, we added up the class total (great mini lesson on regrouping!)The grand total of seeds inside our pumpkin was.... drumroll please.... 253! Our closest estimate was only 152 off :) But they had a great time!

Today we worked with partners to measure our pumpkin using standard and nonstandard units of measurement. They did AWESOME!

Tomorrow we are playing catch up and doing lots of math games and activities. I am all pumpkin-ed out :) Can't wait until our Patriotic mini-unit next week!

Have a fabulous weekend!