Fall is my favorite time of year! My students are working hard, we have established our rules and procedures for a month or so, and…we get to teach about pumpkins! Little Boo is a brilliant book that I just discovered last year. It is about a pumpkin seed named Boo who travels through many seasons of the year as he transforms into a pumpkin. Ladies and gentlemen, this book is amazing. Talk about content integration at your fingertips! This fiction story will allow your students to truly see the cycles that a pumpkin seed goes through to become a great big orange pumpkin. I plan to use this book as an introduction to our two-week pumpkin life cycle unit which begins in the middle of October. After reading the book, I will introduce each stage of the pumpkin and connect it to this text. During the last week of the unit, I always host “Pumpkin Day” for students and any parent volunteers. We transform the classroom into a pumpkin paradise complete with about 10 different pumpkin math, literacy, and science centers. On this day, the class plants individual seeds into a small clear cup at one of the center rotations. We water the seeds Continue Reading
I absolutely love fall. I don’t get much of it {FL girl, born and raised}, but it is my favorite. I incorporate many thematic units from September-December in order to keep the kids engaged and hit all of the necessary curriculum in a fun way. In October, we spend an entire day looking at pumpkins. We write, read, sequence, create, and experiment with pumpkins. We count, practice math skills, plant, and predict with pumpkins. In November, we spend an entire day acting like the Pilgrims and Indians (Colonial Day). We write, read, sequence, create, and experiment with colonial items. We practice math with corn and design maps of the Atlantic Ocean. Pumpkin Day! But today, I would like to introduce you to the student favorite of both themed days – The Taste Test. DISCLAIMER: Please, please, please check your students for allergies before including this in your classroom. Pumpkin Taste Test The idea is quite simple: Just buy some foods, place them on the table, print the graph, and EAT! Let me tell you, the kids have a fabulous time! It is also quite cute to hear all their Mmmmmmmmm’s and Ewwwww’s. Amidst all this excitement, the students don’t even Continue Reading