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16 October 2015

Tricks and Treats Blog Hop

This month we are bringing you some fun Tricks & Treats for your classroom! Be sure to hop around all the different blogs and get some great ideas and freebies!



Who doesn't love pumpkins? I'm going to share with you today how to have a fun day of investigating pumpkins, while also incorporating language arts, math, science, and art!  

Here's what our day looked like:

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. This is a great way to review adjectives and other descriptive language.

 
The kids made predictions about their pumpkins and wrote them down. We predicted what the inside looks like, whether it would sink or float, how many seeds are inside, weight and height, and the length around.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5dsPzSlPOCeREVQVjcxS2VzZXc/view?usp=sharing
 
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.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5dsPzSlPOCeREVQVjcxS2VzZXc/view?usp=sharing
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!
  
 
For a fun art project, we decided to use some of the seeds for a pumpkin 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!


You can grab the pumpkin investigation sheets that we used HERE!

I also have several pumpkin freebies in my TpT store! Get each one by clicking the picture.

Pumpkin Count & Color Emergent Reader - Printable Student Book
 
Free Downloads
 
All About Pumpkins - Print & Go Pack - FREE SAMPLE