Pumpkin Investigations

Last week, I had a patch full of little pumpkin experts--we read all kinds of nonfiction books about pumpkins, and then did pumpkin nonfiction writing of our very own!  We completed a shared writing chart to explain the pumpkin life cycle!  The kids were divided into groups, and had to illustrate and come up with writing for their part of the life cycle.  They did an amazing job.  Nothing is cuter than a kid-created shared writing chart--(in this teacher's opinion)!

The kids continued to work in small groups throughout the week to recall facts they had learned about pumpkins.  They created a giant page for our class pumpkin BIG book!  They used knowledge of nonfiction text features when designing their book pages--many included labels and diagrams to share their learning.

The coolest part of our week of "pumpkin-tivities" was our pumpkin investigation on Friday!  Who knew a little pie pumpkin could be so interesting?!

We estimated how big around our pumpkin was by cutting a piece of string, and then we checked to see if our estimates were too short, too long, or just right.

We estimated how many snap cubes tall our pumpkin was--then we checked our guesses!

We all made a prediction about whether our pumpkin would sink or float in a tub of water...

We also used a hair dryer to see if the force of air would make our pumpkin roll!

We kept a journal of all our findings, and had a great time learning!