Pumpkin Discovery

To find out what our students already knew about pumpkins we asked the students the question, "What do you know about pumpkins?" These were the answers we received.

 We read several books about pumpkins and brought in a pumpkin to discover how pumpkins grow. After reading the book Pumpkin Heads, the students decided to make a vote to see what kind of face we should carve on our own pumpkin.

Then we headed outside to carve our pumpkin into a scary Jack-o-Lantern. Only a few students wanted to stick their hands into the ooey, gooey, cold pumpkin.

Some of our students had the conversation that pumpkins make seeds so they can grow more pumpkins. A few students decided that they would find an empty spot in our garden to plant all the insides and seeds and "maybe" we will have pumpkins growing for us next year!

When we returned inside we talked about what other things people can do with the seeds of the pumpkins. Some students said that they cook the seeds and eat them. I had brought in my seeds from home that I had roasted and the students got to taste test them. Many students were nervous as they had not tasted pumpkin seeds before. To their surprise... many students loved them and kept asking for more!! We decided to make a chart to see who liked the pumpkin seeds and who didn't.

 Then off to the pumpkin patch........

Shape Party Continued

Thank you to all our families who sent in all of our "shape" foods to share with the class. We began by sorting our foods into the different shapes to find out which food shape we had the most of. The students had to solve 2 sorting problems...2 of our foods had 2 shapes in them (circle and square). They decided to put the 2 foods in between the circle hula hoop and square hula hoop. They found that they had 0 rectangle foods, 10 circle foods, 4 square foods and 2 triangle foods and one cake that had all shapes on it.

Our Shape Party!

The students were so excited to dress in as many shapes as they could and looked fabulous in their outfits!

 

We learned a "Party Song" to celebrate all the different shapes we had learned about! Now you can sing it too!

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Rectangle Day!

SHAPES ARE EVERYWHERE!

Each week we have asked students to bring in a different shape or something that had that shape in it. They have been so excited to see that shapes are all around them...in their toys, books, food, house, pictures, clothes.

 

This is the song we learned on our Square Day!  

Our Triangle song from Triangle Day!

Our Friendsgving Feast

Fall Leaf Discovery

Our class enjoyed a beautiful Fall day in our school yard trying to find leaves of all the colours of the rainbow (they quickly discovered that there were no blue leaves to be found). When we returned to school, we sorted the leaves into colour piles and the some students decided to create a pile that had "polka dots".

 

They began asking questions, "Why are there so many leaves with black spots on them.", "I wonder how that happened?". We decided to send home a sample of the leaf with black spots and ask the question to each family,  "Why do you think these leaves have black spots on them?" We had an overwhelming response and found it interesting that families had some of the same thoughts:

-The leaves are changing colour and dying.

-They have a tree disease/sickness

-Maybe a fungus or caterpillars.

-Turning into dirt, mud on them.

-The sun burnt it.

-They are "Tar Spots", a fungal disease on Maple tree leaves.

An answer that taught me something new, "The trees have black spots on them because when temperatures reach the high 60's and the plant has been wet for 6- 9 hours it starts to build up a fungus known as "Diplocarpon Rosae" or black spot fungus."

 

We want to thank all our families for participating in our brainstorming. It made the research more meaningful to each student and they were eager to share the thoughts of their family with the class!!