Pumpkin Activities

BULLETIN BOARD:

"Who Is In Our Pumpkin Patch?"= Students create a pumpkin shaped book that is attached by the stems. Students then write a paragraph about themselves without revealing their names. Glue the paragraphs onto the front of the pumpkin book.  The paragraph must end with "Who am I?" Take a picture of each student and attach the photo to the inside of their book.  Place "pumpkins" on a bulletin board already assembled to look like a pumpkin patch. Students can then read the pumpkins and guess who it is describing.  They lift the pumpkin cover to see whose picture is hiding underneath it.

ART:

Pumpkin Patch: Make a class pumpkin patch using balloons. Blow up a balloon for each child. Paper-maiche the balloons and let dry. Provide green and orange paint.  Have students paint pumpkins and let dry.  On a table, place green table cover with green grass (the ones used for Easter baskets). Place pumpkins on table, You have a pumpkin patch! 

MATH:

Pumpkin Measurements: Here's a fun way to practice measuring in inches and pounds. Have students bring in a small pumpkin (our school had a pumpkin patch in the courtyard, courtesy of a florist). Give students a large piece of construction paper to fold in half to create a book.  On the inside, students write the following:

Name of my pumpkin:
Weight:
Inches:
I like my pumpkin because. . . . . . . . 

Students measure and weigh their pumpkins and write the results in their pumpkin book.  They can then write a sentence or paragraph about their pumpkin.  On the cover, students draw a picture of their pumpkin (or what their pumpkin would look like as a jack-o-lantern).

Pumpkin Graphing: Using the information in their pumpkin books, create a graph on the weight and size of the pumpkins in class.

Estimation: (See Learning Center) Take pumpkin from the learning center.  Carve it open and clean out. Count the seeds.  See which student has the closest estimation.

Pumpkin Math: Have students work in cooperative groups to do the following. Provide students with a worksheet and pumpkin seeds.  Students will use the seeds to solve the problems on the worksheet.

SCIENCE:

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin: Discuss the life cycle of a pumpkin. Then have students create a pumpkin's cycle from seed to pumpkin in their pumpkin book.  Use a real seed, construction paper for the pumpkins, tissue paper for the blossom (flower), and green pipe cleaners for vines. 

WRITING

Pumpkin How-To's: Have students write how to carve a jack-o-lantern by using sequence words such as first, next, then, last, etc. 

Pumpkin Match: Each child draws a jack-o-lantern face and write a description of the face they have drawn. Then, have each child switch descriptions with a partner. The partner draws the jack-o-lantern face on a new pumpkin cut-out by following the description. When the partners are done, they compare the original drawing to the new one to see if they match.

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