How do you celebrate Pumpkin Week?

It's tough to cram everything in with Common Core so I do my best to incorporate math, science, social studies, and holidays all in one nice little package.  Pumpkin Week has always been a class favorite, so I do it every year.  I revamp it each year as my kiddos change and standards switch around.

 I sent an e mail out to parents asking for the following things: a pumpkin to be delivered on Monday, a parent to carve the pumpkin Monday morning, and a parent to wash and bake the seeds.  Luckily I have amazing parent volunteers this year and they gladly volunteered.  Don't fret if you don't have parent support, I've done this several years on my own.  

 The Friday before Pumpkin week, I put up a simple graph.  My kiddos made a bar graph by writing their name in the correct column of the item they wanted.  They chose from a jack-o-lantern, a Frankenstein, and a spider.  Students chose their favorite throughout the day, when they finished an assignment early.  At the end of the day, we analyzed the data.  Frankie the Frankenstein won by 3 votes.  My friends were excited because we just finished the most adorable Frankenstein art project that afternoon.  If you know me, you know I thrive on efficiency.  Instead of passing out each paper that goes with this book, I just stapled all of the pages together so my kiddos has a cute book! 

After the class voted, I set the timer for 5 minutes and students polled 10 friends and made a bar graph.  They answered the graphing questions on their own.  At the end of the lesson, we compared our data.  We finished our graphing data a few weeks ago, so this made for a fun review!

On Monday morning, students came up and lifted up the pumpkin.  They wrote down their adjectives to describe the pumpkin.  I like to use the sentence frame: "This pumpkin is so ________."

 When students were done, our class momma came into carve the pumpkin.  Students gathered around her with so much excitement!  I put some Halloween music from Pandora on and checked their adjectives while the momma took over.

 Each little pumpkin got to stick their hand inside to feel the pumpkin.  When each student finished, they came and washed my hands at the sink.  While they were in line, we came up with adjectives to describe what they felt and smelled.

I let our momma continue carving while students went back to their seats and estimated!  On the second day, I brought in a scale so we could weigh it.  But first, I had a few BRAVE volunteers weigh themselves first.  It was a great way compare the weight of the pumpkin with a 7 year old.  We weighed the pumpkin {15 lbs} and recorded our results.

 On the 3rd day, we counted the pumpkin seeds.  I learned the hard way that count seeds one-by-one is very similar to nail on a chalkboard.  Coming from someone who avoids counting by ones on the hundreds chart, this task use to be torture.  Last year, we decided to count out 10 seeds and put them on the chart paper and circled it with a marker. We grabbed similar handfuls and did the same thing until there were no seeds left.  I love that my students were in charge!

After we counted, we wrote the number different ways.  Did I mention that we had about 320 seeds. Now do you see why counting by ones could drive me crazy?  We're finishing up our place value unit so this activity was perfect.

We also asked 10 friends when they thought the pumpkin would decompose.  We discussed what this meant and compared our pumpkin to other things in our lives that decompose.  For the rest of the week, we'd meet each morning and record our observations.  We made a chart {see above} that listed the day and what the pumpkin looked, felt, and smelled like.

We just finished Day 3 and it's starting to smell a bit funky.  By the end of the day tomorrow, I bet our pumpkin's new home will be outside!

Some tips:

Utilize parent support if possible

Put the pumpkin on a cookie tray because it will leak...GROSS

Have fun!

Each month, we do a Family Art Project.  I send the project home and students decorate with their families. I have never had trouble with students turning their art back in, even when I was at a Title I school.  If you have friends who don't have support at home, you can leave supplies out in your class and let them work on it when they are finished with their other work.

If you want to use this packet in your class, just click on the image below!