It’s time for the pumpkins!! Learning about pumpkins is always a favorite in kindergarten! And we love using our Pumpkin Research Project to get a hands-on learning adventure with pumpkins! This pumpkins research project gives students experience with research, writing, higher-order thinking, vocabulary, and pumpkin centers! And it’s fun! And that’s what matters most! Making learning fun!
As always, we kick off our pumpkin research project or pumpkin unit with a schema map! We share our schema (what we know) about pumpkins. As we learn about pumpkins we add our new learning and finally, we address any misconceptions!
Our research projects center on read alouds and videos for the research and class charts for recording our learning. The students use the class charts to write in their research journals. THEY LOVE THEIR RESEARCH JOURNALS! I love that our research projects give them a consistent structure!
The true/false sort is one of the last activities we do in our research projects and is a great way to bring higher-order thinking into your classroom. This is also an opportunity to have some great academic conversations about what makes a statement true or false!
We measure ourselves using pumpkins! We talked about estimating and how we were making a SMART guess and then we estimated how many pumpkins tall we might be. Each student got measured using our pumpkins. We recorded our guess and actual measurement on our paper. Mr. Greg took a picture of each kidand we will make it into a class book!
We learn the life cycle of a pumpkin.
We label the parts of a pumpkin!
We also do sink or float with pumpkins! This science experiment is super fun because the kids are always amazed at the results! We predict if a pumpkin will sink or float and then we do our experiment and we record our results in our pumpkin research journal!
Pumpkins Five Senses
We also explore pumpkins using our five senses!
Pumpkin Planting
Each year we go on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. When we return to school with our pumpkins we clean them out (ya’ll. This is HILARIOUS!) and fill them with potting soil and plant pansies in them!
And since we haven’t been able to visit the pumpkin patch because of Covid protocols, we used our green screen technology to put the kids in the pumpkin patch!
Pumpkins Art
Of course do amazing art featuring pumpkins! Because no learning experience is complete without art. Art is a must-do in our classroom!
We finger-painted pumpkins! We talked about how mixing colors makes new colors and we mixed red and yellow to make orange. Cue the amazement!
I love the 50 cent shower curtains from Wal-Mart that I’ve had for 3 years. We put these down when we paint and it makes clean up a snap. It’s perfect for our no desks/no tables classroom!
The pumpkin outline you see here is from Creative Clips on TPT but you can use any printable pumpkin outline or even have the students draw their own!
We also made pasta pumpkins! This is one of my favorites! I dye the pasta wheels orange. I give the ‘staches a pumpkin outline and the ‘staches glue the pasta onto the pumpkins!
For info on dying pasta, take a look at this blog post. CLICK HERE​
One of my favorite art projects to do is directed drawings. They’re easy and quick. They’re great for listening skills and following directions. And the results are just awesome! I also love torn paper projects because they’re great for fine motor skills and the results are always so fun!
Pumpkins Foodie Fun Friday
And of course, there was some food involved! Our Foodie Fun Friday for pumpkin week was: making pumpkin pies!
Read the book A Perfect Pumpkin Pie and make mini no-bake pumpkin pies!
Here’s the recipe:
1 cup of Vanilla pudding (1 pudding cup)
3 spoonfuls of pumpkin pie filling (or however many the kids wanna scoop in!)
mini pie crusts (I got my graham cracker crusts at Wal-Mart)
Mix pudding and pumpkin pie filling. Scoop into the crusts.
You can bake them or not. We have a toaster oven so we baked ours at 375 for 10 minutes.
EAT! One ‘stache said: “This is the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had!”
More Pumpkin Ideas And Centers!
I put this together in 10 minutes today and spent $4. Orange plates ($1 Wal-Mart, White dot stickers $2, and clothes pins $1).
I put 1-20 stickers on the plates. I chose white because of the contrast and it looks like….wait for it…pumpkin seeds! BAM! Each clothespin is numbered 1-20. The clothespins are the…wait for it…PUMPKIN STEMS!!!!!! I know right…how fun…how cheap….how simple…how much will the ‘staches love this?! (It’s so awesome, that Butters, The CEO of The Kindergarten Smorgasboard came to the office and gave it a PAW of approval. That means you’re all required to make this! AND GO!)!
And of course we have tons of pumpkin centers!
Pumpkin Sensory Bins
Orange rice, black bowtie pasta!
Orange rice, glittery balls and pumpkins from Dollar Tree!
The pumpkin emoji cards are in our Emoji bundle!
These pumpkin centers are from our Pumpkin Research Project!
These are from our Smashing Pumpkins line of centers! These are a favorite every single year! A must-have!
Get your own Smashing Pumpkins using the links below. The students simply match the hammer to the correct pumpkin. When they find the match, they use the hammer and say SMASH!
Here are all the available Smashing Pumpkins Creations:
Pumpkins Freebies!
Check out these pumpkin resources!
For more ideas, resources and activities, check out these posts:
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9 comments
Hi Greg,
I always enjoy your posts-thanks! I am wondering if your school has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards? You are doing some wonderful science in your room. I always seem to have trouble fitting it in…we have adopted NGSS so I am looking for some help.
As a school and district we have not officially adopted the NGSS. I plan my science with the NGSS in mind! And I’ve also created NGSS assessments for ESGI!
Are the pies still good if you don't cook them? Do you have experience with that? I don't have anything to cook them with in my room.
YES! The Kids LOVE them!
We have not. I just decided that Friday would be science day. We don't have math on Friday, instead we do science and cooking!
Yes they are! The other classes did the pies without cooking and they loved them!
I have something to add…. whip topping in the tub!
same ingredients, no bake pumpkin pie. It is so yummy and rich! I have made it every year for the past 7 years. cool whip, vanilla pudding, pumpkin pie filling in a no bake crust… place in freezer/ fridge to eat for afternoon snack!
Just wonder Greg how you manage these activities which may need supervision(finger painting, cooking, etc)? Are they rotating through stations? Are they coming to you in small groups? Just trying to wrap my head around how I might be able to do this with 23 students by myself.
The cooking and art activities are done whole group!