Pumpkin Math and Science

Halloween has the potential to be one of the most harrowing days of the school year... okay the days that follow can be disastrous as well... ANY WAY, taking all that excitement and channeling it into learning can be challenging. But this year, I had absolutely one of the best teaching days EVER! You might remember that ealier in the month, we went on a field trip to the Pumpkin Festival where the students learned about the life cycle of the pumpkin. We revisited that learning on Halloween through our pumpkin study. I kicked it off by having the students hold the pumpkin that I'd purchased. It was a medium pumpkin but it was no lightweight by any means. The students all agreed that even though the pumpkin "wasn't heavy", it would sink in water.

HA!! (I know... my poor fish probably had a mini-heart attack! Sorry, fishies!) But the students were amazed... and immediately hooked into the lesson! We measured the pumpkin every way we could...

...height

...circumference. Yes, I used the word. Then we defined it and measured it.

...weighed it...

And talked some more about the life cycle and sequenced it using both a non-fiction, a fiction book and video

And last but not least, we used geometry to design our jack-o-lantern...






What a great day spent learning...