Pumpkin Time!

The lessons and activities of the last two weeks of October revolved around pumpkins!  

Our first pumpkin activity was to make our own pumpkin patch to decorate our room!

We created our own jack-o-lanterns first by painting our pumpkin bodies.

Then we gave the pumpkins a bed of grass to rest on.

We also gave them a brown stem.

Our pumpkins became jack-o-lantern with the addition of their eyes.

Then gained all of their personality with their mouth and teeth!

I love all of our cute, silly pumpkins!

Mary Millicent's pumpkin Spooky

Alexander's pumpkin Banana

Austin's pumpkin Silly Guy

Savannah's pumpkin Silly

Dawson's pumpkin Spooky

Bella's pumpkin Spooky

Sarah Kate's pumpkin Spooky

Ian's pumpkin Kim

Anna's pumpkin 

Julian's pumpkin Furry

Tyler's pumpkin Spooky

Ava's pumpkin Owly

Sloane's pumpkin Elsa 

Taylor's pumpkin Rainbow Flash

Samantha's pumpkin Scary Rumple

Cameron's pumpkin Moochie

We then began our pumpkin investigation!  

We first observed the characteristics of the outside of the pumpkin noting it's color (orange!), the way it's felt (bumpy!), how many grooves it had (42!), and that the stem was brown (from being cut off of the vine!).  We then measured our pumpkin's height with linking cubes, it was 21 cubes tall!

We then made a list of things we wanted to know about pumpkins, one of which was "Do pumpkins float?"  After polling the class and learning that the majority of students thought that the pumpkin would sink, we had to test our hypothesis!

One...

Two...

Three little pumpkins...

...floated!  

We learned that pumpkin's float because they are hollow on the inside.  Which lead us to ask "What does the inside of a pumpkin look like?"  So of course we had to investigate!

After taking off the pumpkin's top, each child got to help scoop out some of the pulp and seeds! 

 Some were a little hesitant,

some dove right in,

some were surprised by the cold pulp,

some were amazed by how many seeds they pulled out,

 

 

some weren't so sure of the icky "guts,"

but we all had fun!

After pulling out all of the pulp and seeds we wanted to know "How many seeds our pumpkin had?"   Can you believe our pumpkin had 736 seeds?!?!

Taking one last vote to see which face our jack-o-lantern should have, Mrs. Baker carved the scariest face she could!  PreK B is ready for Halloween!!!

In the midst of all of our pumpkin investigation, we got to meet our reading buddies from 4A!

Sarah Kate and Meg

Austin, Savannah, and Hallie

Mary Millicent, Anna, and Alexis

Ava and Charley

Julian, Alexander, and Lauren

Dawson, Ian, and Alexia

Cameron, Sloane, and Abby

Bella and Luke

Taylor and Samantha

Tyler and Michael

Samantha and Allison

To cap off our first great week of pumpkin lessons and activities, we attended the last football pep rally of the year where PreK won the spirit stick!  This is a HUGE accomplishment, the cheerleaders pick the grade that yells the spirit cheer the loudest, and PreK won!  Go Hoots!

Lastly, Happy Birthday to our newest 5 year old Hoot, Samantha!