Lessons From The Classroom - Pumpkins

Last week we focused on Pumpkins.

We started out with an incredibly fun outing to the pumpkin patch;)  This was just the beginning!  The rest of the week was full of Pumpkin Fun.

We learned about the word "Hypothesis" and then we each made an educated guess about the circumference of each of the pumpkins we had.  We later graphed the results.

Pumpkin carving was a must-do activity.  Areyna chose a kitty-cat and Zeke chose Spiderman.  We saved the seeds for some other activities I had planned.  Rainy and I lovingly referred to Zeke as the "Pumpkin Wuss" because he refused to touch the stringy insides and get the seeds out.  Don't worry he's not been scarred for life.  As a matter of fact, he was making up songs about it!

We did three main activities with the pumpkin seeds:

1 - Math - We made math problems and counted them out with pumpkin seeds.

2 - Art - Pumpkin Seed Mosaic

3 - Cooking - We roasted them in the oven.  Make sure you do this activity in an oven.  I made the mistake of "roasting" pumpkin seeds in my microwave in college the day of open dorms (I think my whole dorm was mad at me) and the whole bowl caught on fire, the room filled with green smoke, which later spread throughout the whole hallway, which lead to the accusation of me smoking pot in my dorm room.  My roommate and I walked around campus smelling like chain smokers for two weeks...it was AWFUL!  So, the key word here is O-V-E-N...

HERE was a fun site that I got a couple of ideas from.

BONUS ACTIVITY:  You can't have a week of pumpkin fun without a Fall Festival and Trick-or-Treating, right? RIGHT?!:)

A GREAT activity to do with the kids is to put all their Halloween candy together in one bowl, basket or bucket and count it before they go to bed.  Then, when they wake up in the morning you can count it again and see how many pieces mommy and daddy ate after they went to bed:)

Did you have any pumpkin fun with your kids?