Our Pumpkins!

Good news and bad news ...

Good new, WE FINALLY CUT UP THE REST OF OUR PUMPKINS!!! While I was out for Halloween, the kids cut into one of the pumpkins they used for their pumpkin investigations. When they did, they saw that the seeds had started to sprout roots INSIDE the pumpkin! So, we decided to cut open the rest of the pumpkins to see what was happening in them. Not only were they sprouting with roots and vines inside the pumpkins, but leaves were sprouted and growing inside, too! So we decided to plant what was already growing and see what would happen!

No for the bad news ... I have the least green thumb on the face of the planet and can never seem to keep plants alive no matter how hard I try! Our makeshift pumpkin patch is covered with flies and the pumpkins have started growing mold ... of course. So they're being thrown away. At least we tried!

Graphing

For math this week, we did Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving themed math stations in whole groups. 

Monday, we made a graph of our family members who are or have served in the military. After we talked about which branch of the military each family member served in we counted each branch and graphed it on our own graphs. Out of the 11 papers that were returned, we had 26 family members in our class that served in the military! Thank you for everything you do, Veterans!

Tuesday, we did a Veterans Day roll and color page. The kids each got 2 dice, rolled both of them, then counted the amount between the two dice. Once they got that number, they colored the number in on their paper.

Wednesday, we did a 100's chart hidden Veterans Day picture.

Thursday, the kids colored and graphed shapes on a turkey.

We're Reading!

That's right, we've started reading! We've been reviewing letters and their sounds and trying to sound out words in our writing by matching printed letters with the sound we hear in words.

Playing letter slap where they have to slap the letter that I say or that matches the sound(s) I make

Lightbulb letter match

Finishing up work in their not finished folders

Using letter tiles to make words on their word building mats

Halloween and Pumpkins!

In social studies during Halloween week, we talked about the origins of Halloween, how different families do or do not celebrate Halloween, and we did a neat lab with pumpkins!

Monday, we watched our BrainPOP on Halloween!

Wednesday, we sequenced the life cycle of a pumpkin after we read a decodable about a pumpkin's life cycle.

Thursday, before our dry ice experiment, we did a pumpkin lab! Our pumpkin Investigation came from a pumpkin mini unit that had a LOT of cool pumpkin stuff in it. Instead of each of the kids getting their own pumpkin, each table group got their own pumpkin. We used princess pumpkins for our investigation.

For our investigation, we needed to see if our pumpkins would float or not. I rigged up a container filler to fill up our tote box while we worked on the rest of our investigation. It was like having a little fountain in our room for a while while we worked!

Not too many kiddos thought our pumpkins would float ... buuuuuut ... THEY DID!