Can you believe that October is almost over? We have had our hands deep into the meat of the curriculum this past week (quite literally I must say). Pumpkins are such an interesting fruit. That is already the first interesting fact, they are a fruit! Wouldn't you assume they would be a vegetable?Secondly, the inside flesh of the pumpkin is known as the meat (confusing). Here is a photo of our class pumpkin. Can you guess how many seeds were inside? Stay tuned to the end of this blog posting to find out.
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When the children arrived, each table was set up for a different pumpkin station. I just loved watching their eyes light up when they saw all of the pumpkins in the room. I have provided a few photos of each station for you to see.
Station #1
Here is an interesting fact that I just learned about pumpkins. Did you know that the lines on a pumpkin tell you how long it has been on the vine? The more lines, the longer it has been growing. As well, each line lets you know that a string of seeds is connected on the inside (interesting eh? I know, I'm still excited about this little gem of information).
The children loved comparing the weight of their pumpkin to themselves. They even managed to get myself and Mrs.Highland (our lovely EA) on the scale. One little boy ran up to me and was in complete shock that Mrs.Highland weighed 10,000 pounds (Wow, we need a new scale).
Station #6
This station was definitely the highlight of our day! Thanks to the wonderful help of Mrs.Granados, the children pulled up their sleeves and got to work counting. Each child had a turn scooping out the pulp and placing the seeds in groups of ten. We then created a large poster to show our groupings of seeds. The children sure had great adjectives to describe the outside and inside of our pumpkin. The class made predictions about how many seeds they thought were inside. Some of our guesses were astounding (10, 30, to 100,000). I'm still going to keep you guessing until the end of this post; however, I will let you know that the above predictions were sadly incorrect. We decided to call our pumpkin 'Jack' - go figure ha ha.
Our week was filled with pumpkin addition. We are currently working on adding numbers to 10; however, we will be adding numbers up to 20 this coming week. Here are a few pictures of us adding with double dice. The children were given a die that had another tiny die inside it. They were told to roll the die and add the two numbers together. They continued by finding a pumpkin on their sheet with the answer and coloured it in.
Another addition lesson we worked on was called 'Eye can make 10'. The children rolled a die and placed that number of eyeballs onto their ten frame (pumpkin ice cube tray). They absolutely LOVED this lesson!! It was fun just watching them make their numbers and record their answers.
'Eye' can't believe how quickly my little pumpkins are catching on to new concepts. 'Eye' am amazed at their learning! ha ha 'Eye' can just keep going! but 'eye' won't ha ha.
One more math lesson I want to share was using candy corn to compose and decompose numbers into ones and tens. They used candy corn to create specific numbers on a ten frame. Our class is full of smarties I tell you! We are enjoying every minute of our learning and growing together.
Thank you once again for all of the on-going support at home. Working together as a team is so essential to the growth of our little pumpkins!
Now I know you can't wait to find out the number of seeds in our class pumpkin. Well, the time has arrived! Here are a few hints:
The number is greater than 300, but less than 500.
Hmm....
O.K. here is another hint
The number is between 400 and 500.
Do you have it yet?
Hmm...
Still thinking?
Another hint you may ask?
The number is 4 hundred eighty __________? (fill in the blank)
Ha ha
O.K I'll make it easy 486!!
Wow!! Did you guess that? If you did then you are brilliant!! Alright, you are all brilliant!!! That is a lot of seeds in one pumpkin. Yes, we did count them all!!! We are very good counters in room 109.
Important Info.
- Please return your child's permission form for our trip to the farm ASAP. We are going to have an exciting time!!
- Please make sure your child has an extra set of clothes at school (pants, socks, underwear, etc.)
- In order to send home our weekly poems, it is important that our poetry duotangs are returned every Monday
- Continue to have your child practise their sight word rings. It is important that they read all of the words, even the words they know. Please send them back to school when you feel that they are confident with their words. I will have them read their list and then add a new level onto their ring.
- Please make sure the only books you record on your child's home reading sheet are the books being sent home from school. Do not write down any additional books you may be reading with your child (even though I fully encourage further reading!!!).
How do you fix a broken Jack-O-Lantern?
With a pumpkin patch!!
What did the Jack-O-Lantern say to the pumpkin?
Cut it out!
The whole pumpkin day was so much fun! I enjoyed helping you and the kids. They are so full of wonder and awe about everything!!! I love seeing their happy faces!! :)
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