Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and more Pumpkins

We had a busy week gaining more knowledge about pumpkins. We looked back at our questions and decided that the best way to learn about the parts of a pumpkin and how to carve a pumpkin was to cut open a pumpkin!

We cut the pumpkin open and took turns digging out the pulp and seeds! We took a vote on if we wanted our jack-o-lantern to be horizontal or vertical.

Horizontal won! We then voted on the shapes that we wanted to eyes, nose and mouth to be. Our choices were triangles, circles, squares, rectangles, and a rhombus!
Look what we chose!

 

While we were taking turns digging out the pulp we looked at the different parts of the pumpkin and completed a parts of a pumpkin book. The book was found at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parts-of-a-Pumpkin-Stamping-Book

While Mrs. Krout was carving our pumpkin, we completed a shared writing on how to carve a pumpkin. We used a template First, Next, Then, and Last!

 We also estimated and counted the number of seeds that were in our pumpkin! Can you guess? There were 510 pumpkin seeds!

Another question that we had was how to make pumpkin cupcakes. We made mini pumpkin muffins by taking one box of spice cake mix and mixing a can of pumpkin. We mixed it and placed them in mini cupcake liners and baked them! They were yummy!

Now we only had one more question to answer and that was what are the different ways to decorate a pumpkin. We had four tables and the students were able to choose what table they wanted to work at. We had lots of fun decorating out pumpkins!

Table #1 made a Batman pumpkin!

 

Table #2 made a flower pumpkin!

Table #3 made a drip pumpkin! We poured paint over the pumpkin and let it drip down!

Table #4 made a spider pumpkin!

We had a BLAST learning about pumpkins!

Pumpkin Investigation Day #4 & Day #5

We read the following books to gather information about pumpkins:

Pumpkins by Melvin and Gilda Berger






 Perfect Pumpkins by Jeff Bauer







 Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson




We also made predictions on how much we thought our pumpkin weighs and how many cubes tall our pumpkin is. We made word documents and displayed them on the Interactive White Board rather than making posters.

 Our pumpkin weighs 38 pounds!

Our pumpkin is 20 cubes tall!
We are excited to learn about the different parts of our pumpkin tomorrow!

Pumpkin Investigation Day #3

Once again we started our day with reviewing our web and questions. The students also were happy to share their pumpkins that were created yesterday!

We started doing our "research" to try to answer our questions. We a read a Nonfiction book about pumpkins and talked about the parts of a nonfiction book. We will continue our research tomorrow!

Math

We placed number from 1-15 in order together as a group. The children then used their own sets of numbers to sequence the numbers from 0-15!

Pumpkin Investigation Day #2

We started today with reviewing our web from yesterday. Then we brainstormed a list of questions we would like to be able to answer!

Questions

1. What are the different ways to paint a pumpkin?

2. How do you carve a pumpkin?

3. How do you make pumpkin cupcakes?

4 . What are the parts of a pumpkin?

Once we were finished coming up with questions, the students were given the opportunity to "represent" what they think a pumpkin looks like. I placed a variety of materials on a table. Each child was allowed to choose the materials he or she wanted to use to make a pumpkin!

The students had a BLAST!

Tomorrow we will start investigating to find the answers to our questions!

Pumpkin Investigation

Today we started our pumpkin unit. We began by tasting mystery cookies. The students had to taste the cookie and then make predictions on what they though we were learning about. I continue calling on students until someone guesses pumpkins!

 Next we created a web with everything we already know about pumpkins!

We ended our lesson today with sharing pumpkin stories with a partner! We can't wait to learn more about pumpkins tomorrow!

Zero the Hero

Week of October 8, 2012

On Wednesday of this week we celebrated our 30th day of kindergarten this year! On each day that ends with a 0 we get a visit from zero the hero!

This pattern was gotten from http://www.kinderteacher.com/ZeroTheHero.htm

On day 10 Zero the hero visited and left a book explaining why 0 is a hero! This book was gotten from 

http://inspiredbykindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/09/zero-hero.html.

Each time Zero the Hero visits our classroom, he leaves a gift that is in the shape of a zero.

Day 10: He left us beads. Each child was given a piece of string and 10 beads to make a necklace.

Day 20: He left us a bag full of Cheerios! We played number bingo with the Cheerios!

Day 30: He left us a bag full of fruit loops. Each child was given a pipe cleaner and 10 fruit looks to make a bracelet!

We loved our visit from Zero the Hero! We can't wait until day 40!

Splat the Cat

Week of October 1, 2012

This week we read Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton. The children LOVED the book! After reading the story we completed a story map and the students created their own Splat the Cat!