Category Archives: Pumpkin Investigators

On monday after Halloween to start wrapping up I set up a cooking centre at the back of our classroom. I wanted to make pumpkin soup with the students. The main reason for doing this is that I wanted to explore the idea of what happens to pumpkins after halloween. I thought this would be an appropriate way to think about social responsibility from the perspective of young children.

I chopped up the two small pie pumpkins that we used for measurement at home and brought all the ingredients into the classroom. I set up the centre next to the sink so students could wash their hands before we started. The students were incredibly excited about this and one student even thought that what we were doing was going to be “pretend”. When he saw the vegetables he exclaimed “We’re making REAL soup!”. Another student promptly informed him that our soup was “non-fiction” 🙂

Our recipe:

4 cups of vegetable stock

2 pie pumpkins

2 onions

2 potatoes

2 carrots

1/4 cup of cream

cumin, nutmeg, coriander, garlic

Cook on high for 4.5 hours

The students came over to the centre in groups. Each student had a chance to measure out something and pour it into the big crock pot. Afterwords I moved the crock pot to the counter outside the classroom and plugged it in there instead of inside our classroom for safety. That afternoon we all tasted the soup. One student carefully helped me “set the table” for everyone. I think one of the most important outcomes for the students was the social skills. We practiced different things we could say if we didn’t like the soup. “No thank-you.” or “That’s not for me”. (Our yes/no question for that day was “Do you think you will like the soup?)

A really fun time- more pictures to come.

All week we have been looking at different feeling Jack-O-Lanterns during our poem at calendar time. We have Jack-O-Happy, Jack-O-Proud, Jack-O-Sad, Jack-O-Mad, Jack-O-Scared, Jack-O-Surprised, Jack-O-Silly, and Jack-O-Sleepy. We play a game where we act out the feelings that I learned at FRIENDS.

On Thursday afternoon I wanted student input on how we should carve our big pumpkin. This is the same big pumpkin we retrieved all our seeds out of! I used our Yes/No chart and swapped the Yes and No to “Jack-O-Mad” and “Jack-O-Happy”. The class contributed their ideas and Jack-O-Mad it was.

I know it’s not exactly the House of Commons but the students gave their input Thursday afternoon and came in Friday morning to see that their voices chose how our Jack-O-Lantern would look on Halloween.

Some interesting play has been emerging ever since my measurement lesson. I have left the materials out for when we usually do puzzles…

Student right: “We’re doing this just in case the edges break the pumpkins won’t roll away from you guys, we’re fixing it”.

Student left:  “I found someone I can play with”

Do you think the big pumpkin will float?

This was the big question of the day before centre time. Most students in the class thought that the big pumpkin was not going to float. We talked about how in science it doesn’t matter if your prediction is right or wrong, the most important part is that you asked the question in the first place. If you ask a question you can be a scientist!

The students LOVE answering these questions

To do this activity I donned my lab coat and had students come over to the centre in groups of seven. I wanted to do this in smaller groups in order to give the children more interaction with each other and the experiment. We passed each item around the circle, after holding it for a couple seconds the students told me if they thought it would float or sink. Each student got to hold the object and make a prediction before we dropped it into the water. Some ideas and comments:

“little things are light and they can float”

“this one is heavy”

I decided not to use the water table for this activity- instead I used a large rubbermaid bin as I thought this would give students more room to see in. Before I put each item in I asked the students “Does it matter if we’re right or wrong?”, the answer I got each time was a resounding “NO!”. Then I asked “What’s the most important thing?”, the answer I got was “That we ask a question!”. I thought the students really understood this in a surprisingly mature way. There are even some graduate students who have a hard time wrapping their heads around this idea so I was ultra impressed that my students understood it so simply and clearly.

One of the most interesting observations was the long and skinny gourd, after hitting the surface of the water it would start to sink, change direction and then float back up.

We tested all seven of the pumpkins and gourds. My SA took several pictures

Spoiler alert: All the pumpkins and gourds float!

After we picked out all the seeds from the pumpkin yesterday I took them home to clean up a little bit. I brought them back this morning and I was showing them to a very kind EA who works in our room. Her and I started to wonder how many seeds were collected from the huge pumpkin. I estimated maybe around 300 and she thought maybe closer to 400 but neither of us were sure. We couldn’t help ourselves- soon we were twenty minutes away from the bell and we were desperate to find out how many seeds! We counted in groups of 10 and found that there were 551 seeds!

551 seeds all came out of this big pumpkin.

When I did the measuring activity with the children, I told them all about how Mrs. EA and I had spent our morning. I was so glad that her and I had that moment together this morning to let ourselves be curious and use that kind of inquiry mindset. Being able to refer back to our process really helped me in explaining and guiding the lesson for the students and I think it added another level of engagement for them.

1. Asking a question (how many seeds were in this pumpkin?)

2. Making a hypothesis (A guess we thought might come true)

3. Testing our hypothesis (Counting the seeds, see what happens)

4. Making a conclusion (finding out)

5. Recording our observations (writing it down)

I scaffolded this whole process for students in small groups at a time for our measurement. First we asked our question (how many blocks tall is this pumpkin or gourd?). Then we made observations so we could guess how many blocks we might need. Then we tested it out with the blocks we had. We found out how many blocks we needed. The students reported how many blocks they needed to me and I reordered our observations!

The students in this class love being scientists!

We opened up our big pumpkin this morning and found the seeds and pulp inside. Like scientists we used our magnifying glasses to look closely so we could make good observations. We picked out the seeds from the pulp using tweezers. Some comments from the group:

“This is a fun centre game!”

“I shared the magnifying glass”

“I got one and I didn’t get any goo on it”

“I love doing this!”

“sticky seed”

“this is hard”

“I don’t like doing seeds”

Overall I liked this centre. The student feedback was mixed- Most students really loved it. One or two found it to be difficult. One student in particular didn’t want to try having a turn at this centre. After encouraging him further we eventually found out that it wasn’t that he was not interested in the activity, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to use the tweezers and everyone would see that he couldn’t do it. After lots of reassurance that I would help him he reluctantly gave it a try. After a few minutes he was laughing and having a great time- he thought it was a lot of fun. In fact, I had a hard time getting him to wash his hands and leave the centre! We learned that sometimes when something is very hard it can be fun because then it’s a challenge.

In my opinion the students who have difficulty with this type of activity are the ones who it can really benefit. I know this type of fine motor activity strengthens the muscles in children’s fingers and hands. This practice will benefit the students when we do more printing towards the end of the year and in grade 1.

What I liked:

-hands on

-sensory

-fine motor

-hand-eye coordination

-thematic

Next time:

Larger space so more students can participate at a time allowing for longer turns (less pressure to rotate through the whole class)

What a fun afternoon!

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch. Before we left I read “I Like Pumpkins” by Jerry Smath and we reviewed the pumpkin life cycle (seed, sprout, vine, flower, green pumpkin and then orange pumpkin).

I also asked my very first question of the day “Have you ever seen a green pumpkin?”. This is a brand new activity for the students that I’ve introduced. I was wondering if they’d enjoy it. It went better than I expected, they were very engaged. Six students said they had not seen a green pumpkin and 15 students said they had! How many were being honest? Who knows! It doesn’t really matter- what’s more important is that this activity included their voice in a public forum. They each got a special turn to come up and decide Yes or No.

students answer the question of the day. Have you ever seen a green pumpkin- Yes or No? 

The question really had the children thinking about the way pumpkins look at different stages of their life cycle. When we went to the patch the children’s eyes were peeled for green pumpkins. We saw a few! By the time we left everyone could honestly put their name in the “yes” column.

The best part of the day was seeing all the kindergarten students lined up in the mud at the pumpkin patch waiting for our tour to start. Sheer excitement and while we were waiting they were all singing a song I taught them earlier today.

“Have you ever seen a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin? Have you ever seen a pumpkin that grows from a seed? 

A big one? a small one? 

A green one? An orange one? 

Have you ever seen a pumpkin that grows from a seed?” 

The weekend before two weeks of practicum… I’m so excited to start this project plan with the students. I visited a nursery this morning having an amazing one-day special- $1.99 for any pumpkin any size, and miniature pumpkins and gourds at 2/ 99 cents. I considered getting my pumpkins for class from the beautiful herb farm we are visiting on Monday but the pumpkins at the farm are going to be quite expensive. I also want the students to be able to look at a few before we leave the school. I purchased 1 big pumpkin, 2 medium pumpkins, 2 small pumpkins and 2 strange looking gourds all for $8.65. I think all of that would have cost me a fortune anywhere else. Good thing I’m a bargain hunter and hoarder- it’s already coming in handy for Kindergarten! Plus, I have big plans for these pumpkins and I think they’ll be worth it.  I can’t wait for the students to have a look around the farm or see the look on their faces when we check out the weird gourds.

Our essential question is: “Have you ever seen a pumpkin that grows from a seed?”

Who knows what other questions we’ll have or what ideas we’ll come up with. Especially since we are using the scientific method as a framework for our investigation. Of course-the scientific method in it’s most basic form! 

“Scientists ask questions, and they make observations.”

I’ll make sure to keep this section of my blog updated with our questions and observations!

Absent from photo: big pumpkin

The final product.

Shapes (circles, rectangles, triangles) make jack-o-lanterns. Excitement is really building for the pumpkin patch on Monday!

The most exciting news! An EA at our school was able to secure us a spot at an extra special pumpkin patch! This is the farm we originally discussed taking the students but was booked months in advance! We are so lucky to get the VIP access.

Things that will be the same: The date, the time and the number of parent volunteers needed

Things to that will have to change: notify parent drivers, update administration, update permission forms

One of the reasons why this pumpkin patch in particular is so great is that the children get to go into the barn and observe the animals. The farmer also grows a variety of different coloured pumpkins, fancy pumpkins, and gourds in addition to standard orange carving pumpkins.

Meanwhile…

prep, prep, prep

Preparing for an exciting project!

The class is buzzing about pumpkins. I made some observations on each student’s scissor skills today by working with them one-to-one on cutting out pumpkins. Here’s what some students had to say to me about pumpkins:

“Have you ever seen a white pumpkin? A ghost pumpkin. I like to eat the seeds”

“We have three big pumpkins at home and I have my costume already!”

“Mummy got a small pumpkin from the place where I dance and I drew an angry bird face”

“I don’t need to go to the pumpkin patch because I have my own at home. It’s okay if you come to my house to get one”

“Guess what this is my pumpkin snack its a pumpkin square- it’s made of REAL pumpkin!”

Earthquake drill! Great work Kindergarten.

On my first visit to school I discussed with my school advisor the possibility of taking the students to a pumpkin patch during my two week practicum. She was very open to the idea so I did some research that weekend. I wanted to document the planning process. I’ve been on many field trips before on practicum and as extra supervision at the school I worked at last year but this is my first time being so involved in the planning process. So far

October 2- Talked with my school advisor about the idea

October 4-5 Researched possible locations

October 7- Booked the field trip for 20 students in my class

October 9 – Visited the field trip site after school to look around and make sure the space was safe and appropriate for students to visit. Filled out the form to submit to administration with my school advisor

October 10- Increased the booking to 41 students after the teacher in the other kindergarten class indicated she would love to join us

I’m very excited! Here’s a photo from my visit to the site on October 9th.

Can’t wait for our visit!