Pumpkin Investigation

I saw this in a classroom nearly a year ago (and I've been saving it for a more appropriate time to put up on the blog)... to be fair I did happen across this bulletin board in December and thought it was not quite right for the season.

The papers are hard to read but one of them says: 

"Introduction and Naming our Pumpkins"

"We began our investigation by naming our pumpkins. We have a big one and a small one. First, we brainstormed a list of names for each pumpkin. Then, we took a vote to decide what their names would be. The vote concluded that the big pumpkin would be "Alvin" and the small pumpkin would be "Theodore"

Below that the paper says:

"Describing Alvin and Theodore"

"Next, we thought about all of the things that pumpkins "can do", what pumpkins "have" and what pumpkins "are". We came up with these lists as a class. Then, each student recorded the lists on their own sheet of paper. We hope to use these descriptive words as our pumpkin investigation continues!"

Their "can" list included words such as: roll, rot, light up, break, be white, float, and grow. Their "have" list included words like "seeds, stems, guts, bumps, scratches, dent, lines, and pulp. Finally, their "are" list included: round, orange, fat, big, small, yummy, heavy, squishy, and a fruit.

More hard to read pictures of words but here's what they say...

"Pumpkin Read-Aloud and Art"

"During the month of October our classroom library has remained stocked with plenty of books related to the autumn season. We read several books about pumpkins including one called "The Ugly Pumpkin" which served as our mentor text for our pumpkin art. In this book, the students noticed that not every pumpkin is perfectly orange and round... some pumpkins are actually quite funny looking! We also discussed how some fruits, like squash, like to masquerade as pumpkins just like the character in our story. The students were given two primary colours, red and yellow, so they could create whichever shade of orange that they liked. Our art turned our fantastic with some pretty creative, silly, and unique looking pumpkins!"

"Descriptive Pumpkin Writing"

"When we finished our pumpkin art we thought it would be a great idea to write about our pumpkins. It was fun to look at all the different pumpkins that the students created and to notice the differences. I demonstrated what format that writing might take by first creating my own pumpkin art and then describing the pumpkin in writing for the students. The students offered me suggestions on ideas about how I might describe my pumpkin. It was a real collaborative effort! The students' creativity and wonderful ideas continued to shine through in their writing"

"Pumpkin Predictions"

"Our class had many questions regarding our pumpkins, Alvin and Theodore. We compiled a list and decided to investigate Alvin to discover some answers. In groups of four or five, I showed the students a small sample of tools we would be using to help us answer these questions. For example, I would show them one unifix cube next to Alvin. Then I asked, how many unifix cubes would we need to make a tower tall enough to reach the top of Alvin's stem? We did the same thing with a piece of yarn. If one centimetre of yarn looks like this, how many centimetres of yarn would we need to reach around the centre of Alvin once? We answered each of our questions in a similar manner. Before carving Alvin we measured everything together and recorded the "official" answers. The students were very surprised with some of them! Others were very excited with how close their educated predictions were!"

"Skip Counting Pumpkin Seeds"

"After carving the pumpkin, removing the seeds and drying them out for counting we discussed as a class which method of counting would be the easiest and quickest. As a teacher, I was very pleased when the students came up with idea of skip counting piles of seeds almost right away. Every day during our morning we practice skip counting. The students suggested that we make piles of two, five, and ten to count all the seeds. We decided to make five equal groups of students. Two groups were responsible for skip counting their pile by two's, two groups were responsible for skip counting their piles by five's, and the final group skip counted their pile of seeds by 10's. We ended up counting 426 seeds!"