Hi Families, I hope you all had a wonderful week. It is almost the end of our “fantastic” unit Autumn Science. The students explored so much during this month and it is amazing to hear them talk about all the things they have learned thus far. For this week, we have been exploring pumpkins through hands-on activities as well as through shared reading. Highlights for this week were… • Making Predictions about what is inside a pumpkin – The children made predictions about what they thought was inside of the pumpkin. Most of the children guessed that there are seeds on the inside, while some guessed that there was a truck water growing inside the pumpkin. To allow children to see if their predictions were correct, I cut open a large pumpkin for …show more content…
We also talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin and the changes pumpkins go through. I explained to the children that all living things grow, get older, and die, but also produce a new version of themselves. We talked about how pumpkins were first a seed, then they became a tiny plant, then they grow into big plants that are ready to be harvested. I explained that once the pumpkins are harvested and carved into jack-o-lanterns, they will later decompose (We discussed decomposition in a later activity). Two activities the children did were to plant pumpkin seeds and leave it inside the classroom so that they can observe it daily, and to make a prediction about whether the heaviest pumpkin will sink or float in water. The children were having difficulties understanding the concept of sink or float so I had to demonstrate to them using a pumpkin. After the demonstration, I showed them two different size pumpkin and asked them which would sink or float; most of them predicted that the pumpkins would sink. When they placed both pumpkins inside the water, they were surprised to see that they both floated. I later explained to them why the pumpkins floated and didn’t …show more content…
After our discussion, we followed a recipe to make pumpkin pudding ice-cream. The children were excited about our cooking activity as they all got to participate in the preparation. They were even more anxious to taste the yummy treat. Most of the children enjoyed it and ask for seconds, while the others nibbled on it before deciding that they don’t like it. We all tried it and it was delicious!! Later in the afternoon, we practiced writing the numbers 1-5 with our math tracing cards, as well as counting pumpkin seeds using 1-1 correspondence. We will continue to practice writing and recognizing