Cute Pumpkin Seeds Craft

After our fun Pumpkin Investigation the other day, we decided to use some of the seeds for a fun craft!

First we dyed the seeds by putting some in a plastic bag and adding a small splash of vinegar and food coloring! We made green, orange, and brown (red, green, and yellow food coloring). The kids had fun squishing the seeds inside the bags to coat them.

 

Next we laid them out on paper towels to dry. It took several hours, so we ended up finishing the craft the next day.

 

 

I printed out a pumpkin outline I found online, and had the kids cut it out and glue it on their choice of colored paper. Then we just glued the seeds on to make the pumpkin!

Fan Freebie Time

It's time for another Fan Freebie! I am working on a new set of books for my daughter as she is learning to read, and I'm giving away the first seven I've finished to all my TpT followers as a gift to say thank you for following!

 

To be sure you get this freebie, follow me HERE by clicking the green star under my store name. I will send a note to your TpT inbox in a few days with the freebie! This will be the only chance to get this for free as I will add it as a paid product later on when I complete the set.

 

Thanks!

Pumpkin Investigation



We had so much fun with our pumpkin investigation today! Each of the kids got their own small pumpkin to investigate. First we talked about words that describe the outside of the pumpkin and the kids drew a picture on their investigation sheets.

 

The kids made predictions about their pumpkins and wrote them down.

 

Next, we did some investigations to find out the facts!

Finding weight by measuring the kids with the pumpkin and without! Great way to incorporate more math :)

Counting seeds by making groups of 10

 

We wrote the findings on the second investigation worksheet.

You can grab these worksheets for free HERE.

 

The cleaning out and counting seeds took awhile since I had to help them all with it, so if this is an activity you want to do with a classroom of students, I would suggest doing it in groups with parent volunteers!

 

 Tomorrow we are planning on painting pumpkins and making a craft with all of our pumpkin seeds!

October Giveaway!



I'm teaming up with The McGrew Crew for another awesome giveaway this month! Enter to win a $25 TpT gift certificate or store credit from our stores! Enter below, and good luck!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Freebie Friday - Pumpkins!



I have seriously been looking forward to this post for a long time!! I love fall and everything pumpkin, so I was excited to find these great pumpkin freebies! I just couldn't wait until tomorrow, so I guess it's Freebie Thursday this week :-)

 

All About Pumpkins - Sample Pack

 



Pumpkins Count & Color Emergent Reader

 

 

Pumpkin Hundreds Chart Mystery Picture 



Pumpkins Mini-Unit By: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten

 

My Pumpkin Seed By: The Daily Alphabet

 

Pumpkin Roll, Color, & Color By: Young & Lively Kindergarten

 

Pumpkin Nonsense Words By: Patty Rutenbar

 

Pumpkin Patch Closest to 100 Math Game By: The Coach's Corner

 

Sequencing With Pumpkin Life Cycle War Game By: Life Over C's

 

Pumpkin Addition Sort By: Creativity to the Core

 

Rainbow Pumpkins Clip Art By: Krista Wallden

*Disclaimer: All the products are free at the time of this post. Sometimes authors change the price of items. I'm sorry if any of these are no longer free or available.

 

Thanksgiving Mystery Picture Freebie!

This cute 120 Chart Mystery Picture is a part of my Thanksgiving Pack, but it also works great for Columbus Day! I hope your kids have fun with it!

 

Use it as a fun math center, or use it as a fun listening activity where the teacher reads the numbers and colors aloud as the students color in the squares.

 

You could also pair this with a writing activity like, "Imagine you were sailing with Columbus. Write about the day you discovered America," or "Imagine you are sailing to the Americas to start a new life. Write about what you will do when you land."

 

Get the free download HERE!

 

 

Three Little Pigs STEM Challenge

I've recently begun trying to incorporate a fun STEM activity into our homeschool day. It's been a lot of fun, but also a little challenging coming up with something every day! Last week we were reading versions of "The Three Little Pigs" and comparing them during our language arts time, so I decided to incorporate that theme into our STEM time!

I gave my son some materials and a small plastic pig and had him try to build a house that would stand up when we tried to blow it down. I spread it out over a few days, so the first day I gave him some drinking straws and index cards. It was a little bit of a challenge to get them to stay together, but he got something built.

 

As expected, we didn't have to blow very hard for this house to fall down.

 

The next day I added some popsicle sticks to add to the building materials. It was much easier to build.

But it too came down pretty easily with some huffing and puffing.

 

 

Finally the last day I added some dominos to the building materials.

 



It was a little stronger, but it didn't stand up to a blow dryer, which was our ultimate goal! After this one knocked down I asked him to brainstorm other ways we could build a house to stand up to the big bad blow dryer. He finally came up with the idea of using some heavy books. So we built the house with the dominos and sticks again, but this time we placed a heavy book on top instead of the index cards, and it couldn't be blown down!

During the week we also did some of these fun Three Little Pigs 120 Chart Mystery Pictures to add in some math!

You can get this pack of 120 Chart Pictures HERE!

 

I also have this super easy emergent reader version of the Three Little Pigs HERE!

 

 

We had so much fun with this story! I'm dreaming up ideas for our next fairy tale! :-)

Tricks & Treats Blog Hop

Over all my years of teaching (3 years in a public school classroom, 2 years teaching English overseas, and now in my 3rd year of homeschooling my own kids) I have found that there is one common thing that helps all students stay engaged and ultimately succeed:

Making. Learning. Fun.

With all the "standards" and "tests" that we as teachers are pressured with, I think it's so important to not transfer those pressures onto the students. Little ones don't need that stress in their lives! I believe we can have fun AND teach our students what they need to know. All it takes is a little creativity, preparation,  and a whole lot of Pinterest :-)

Here are a few ideas of ways I've found to take important skills that need to be taught and turn them into a fun game or activity that your kids might not even realize is educational.

1. Turn review into a game. Most kids love competition, so a fun way to review any subject, is with a game! My favorite is a kind of Jeopardy style set up, with categories and points.

 

I write out something like this on the white board and have a corresponding list of questions that I've made for myself. Divide the class into 2 teams and they take turns picking a question. If they get it right, they get that many points. Then I erase the one they picked off the board and the next team picks! I love this game because it is so versatile! Your categories and questions can be math problems, vocabulary, true/false, multiple choice, spelling words, or anything else you want!

 

2. Other games we like to play are sports games. For example, to practice spelling words, we play "Spelling Shoot Out." I say a word aloud, and if the student can spell it correctly, they get one point for their team. Then they shoot a ball into a basket and if they make it, they get an extra point. This is also such a versatile game that can be used with any subject!

 

3. Make learning hands-on as much as you can! Find ways to incorporate manipulatives like dice, dominos, popsicle sticks, cards, blocks, or even candy on special occasions.



Candy Corn - Sort & Tally Freebie

Playing games like "War" is great for helping kids with greater than, less than, and equal!



Skip counting with popsicle sticks



Lego word family sorting idea by The Reading Mama.
You could also use this for spelling out words or alphabetizing.

 

4. And lastly, something I've found kids absolutely LOVE are mystery pictures! I've created some mystery pictures that cover a wide range of skills, and the students are so engaged in discovering the picture, that they don't even know they are learning! Here are some freebies for you of some of the different mystery pictures I have. I hope you can find some that suit your students' needs.

Dot Marker Mystery Pictures - This is a sample of an Alphabet Dot Marker Picture, Number Dot Marker Picture, and Sight Words Dot Marker Picture. (PreK-1st)

 

Pumpkin Hundreds Chart Mystery Picture (K-1)

 

Multiplication Mystery Picture (3-5)

 

Symmetry Mystery Picture Graphs (2-4)

 

Mystery Picture Graphing Activity (Finding Alphanumeric Coordinates (3-6)

 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please visit some of these awesome blogs for more Tricks & Treats!!

 

An InLinkz Link-up