Activities to do with REAL Pumpkins!

-
It's fall and the day before Halloween!  Are you looking for some fun last minute ideas for your pumpkin other than just carving it?  Here is what we have done with our pumpkins!


I first bought three pumpkins, one for each of my children.  I let them sit outside and paint them any way they desired!  They turned out wonderful!  I use them as decoration on my counter!


I also bought a small pumpkin pie pumpkin to do come activities with.  I cut the top from the pumpkin and dug out the insides.  I let my daughter feel the inside and had her pick out the seeds.


After washing and drying the seeds, we counted how many we had with a pumpkin seed counting mat.  I first, before even cutting the pumpkin, had her predict how many she thought would be in there.  She guessed 50.  We had 77 seeds total!  Apparently smooth pumpkin have less seeds.  I learned this after picking out this pumpkin.  Some people had pumpkins of similar sizes with over 400 seeds! 


We then turned our pumpkin into a volcano!  I put two heaping tablespoons of baking soda then added one cup of vinegar!  My kids LOVED watching it!  We had to repeat the experiment 4 times!  Thankfully baking soda and vinegar are not expensive!






MORE WAYS TO CONNECT

Subscribe below to our email list for the latest blog posts, products, sales and freebies! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Post

Using Pouch Tops in the Classroom

-
Image
So you have been saving those tops from applesauce or baby food pouches, because, lets face it, you are a teacher and you do not throw ANYTHING away if it MIGHT be useful... right?  So now you have a little collection started and you are wondering, "What in the world can I do with all these colorful pouch tops?!"  This post strives to give you several fun and engaging ideas to use these tops in your classroom. Counters These pouch tops make excellent counters for math, especially when learning to count or recognize numbers 1-20.  ( Counting Mats 1-10 and Counting Mats 11-20 ) Patterns Create patterns or use pattern cards to complete patterns with these pouch tops!  You can get a set of pattern cards for FREE here ---> Pouch Top Printables Building A Pyramid Build A Tower Color Sorting Give students different colored tops and have them sort the tops according to color.  You can let them group the tops on their own or give them colored pape
Read more

One Hundred Ways to Celebrate the 100th Day of School

-
Image
Here is a list of 100 ideas that you can do in your classroom or adapt for your home to celebrate the 100th day of school!  Links are provided to the printables needed to complete some of the activities. 1.  Count to 100. 2.  Dress up as a 100 year old person. 3.  Write a story:  If I were 100 I would... 4.  Write a story:  If I had $100 I would buy... 5.  Make 100th Day Hats 6.  Make a necklace out of 100 pieces of cereal. 7.  Flip a penny 100 times and record the results. 8.  Use q-tips to put 100 dots on a sheet of paper. 9.  Put 100 stickers on a hundreds chart. 10.  Hide 100 pieces of candy around the room and have the students find them. 11.  Make a 100th day snack by using two round cookies and one graham cracker stick. 12.  Complete a 100s Chart Mystery Picture . 13.  Do 100 exercises. 14.  Snack: Give students 10 pieces of 10 different types of small snack like foods to total 100 pieces. 15.  Have students bring in 100 items in a bag. 16.  Make a pic
Read more

Letter M Activities

-
Image
Looking for activities to go along with teaching the letter M?  Look below to see the activities we have done! We often begin out letter of the week activities with a letter hunt and a letter sorting activity.  I hid the letter M cards around the house and send my kid off to find them.  As he finds the letters, he brings them to the table and sorts them for capital and lowercase letters. My son has gotten where he loves this sorting activity.  He can look through precut letters or cut his own letters to sort on this capital and lowercase letter sorting mat . We made letter Ms using marshmallows and toothpicks.  My son (3) had a little difficulty placing the toothpicks into the marshmallows and getting them to stay, but my 6 year old had no trouble at all. We continued our marshmallow theme by lining our letter M mat with mini marshmallows.  It was a fun activity and a tasty snack after he was done! M is for money!  We raided the piggy bank to line our lowercas
Read more

Letter B Activities

-
Image
We have finally started the letter B.  We began by telling my 2 year old that the letter B is the first letter in his name.  He wasn't impressed.  He has no motivation to do any of the letter B crafts so far.  He was so excited about letter A and doing "school" with sissy, I thought he would like to continue with new activities.  I guess the novelty of it has worn off. Letter hunts are so much fun!  We went through our toy room and found a variety of items that start with B!  A bowl from the kitchen area, blocks, a bug, a bus, a bear, a bow, a ball, a letter B from our alphabet puzzle, a banana from our fruit puzzle and a bridge from our train set! My five year old wanted to get in on the letter B action so I asked her if she could make a "bee pattern" on her letter B.  She said, "Yes!  That is so easy!" and the above is what she made for me. My two year old was tasked with coloring his letter B black and blue.  He was more into his tr
Read more

Apples Apples Apples!

-
Image
Here is a collection of apple activities we have done this year!  I did these with my five year old and my 2 year old! Here was our first art project!  The letter outline we used can be found in my Lowercase Letter Outlines ! We got to be scientists as we studied what part of an apple floats or sinks.  The recording pages can be found in this Let's Be Scientists packet !  I wrote a more detailed blog post about it HERE !   We looked at and sequenced the life cycle of an apple.  We also did this art project where my kids colored their apple then tore red paper to decorate it!  My two year old LOVED ripping up the paper! These printables can be found in this Apple Themed Packet ! We used this hundred's chart number recognition activity to kick off our apple theme this year!  The number chart came from Simply Kinder but I could not find where the pattern we used came from. This is a neat little art project my son (2 years old) did at MOPs!  I'm
Read more

Letter K Activities

-
Image
Looking for activities to go along with teaching the letter K?  Look below to see the activities we have done! This is one of our favorite alphabet activities!  We use these letter mats to build our letters with pouch tops! Playdough is another favorite around here!  He gets to choose the color he wants then he uses these letter mats to create his letters! Other Letter K Themed Ideas: Kangaroo Key Kickball Kindness King Kite Koala Chants and Songs:  Letter K Chant   Big K, Little K What begins with K? Kite, Key and Kangaroo All begin with K! Letter K Song K says /k/ K says /k/ Every letter makes a sound. K says /k/ Old King Cole Games Kickball  - Practice kicking balls around or attempt to play an actual kickball game.    Foods and Snacks for the Letter Kk: Kiwi Letter Kk Products: This alphabet packet contains 50 pages of activities, centers, and games that are perfect for learning about the letter K! -- Letter K A
Read more

Letter J Activities

-
Image
Check out this post for activities all about the letter J! J is for Jaguar - Use these capital letter outlines to create a jaguar print letter J.  We simply colored the J yellow and then used a q-tip with black paint to make the rosettes. We used pouch tops to fill in our letter J mat!  These letter mats are one of our favorite activities!  We used juice to paint these lowercase letter j pictures.  The kids loved doing this different kind of art.  We used these letter pages as playdough mats.  My son loves using playdough so we try to incorporate it into each week of letter learning.  When we finish with the playdough, we use the same mats to sort capital and lowercase versions of the letter.    These stamping pages are a favorite activity around here!  They make a great fine motor activity and allows for hand-eye coordination practice. [These pages are found here ---> Alphabet Stamping Center ]   These reading cards are great for intro
Read more

Letter P Activities

-
Image
Looking for activities to go along with teaching the letter P?  Look below to see the activities we have done! P is for pepperoni pizza!  We used brown and red crayons for crust and sauce, used yellow paper shreds for cheese and red circles for pepperoni for this letter P craft! The Letter Outline can be found here:  Capital Letter Outline          These letter P pages use pouch top to build each letter.  With one page for the capital letter P, and one page for the lowercase letter P, these pages were a favorite with my preschooler! These pages are found here:  Pouch Top Alphabet Mats Another favorite around here are playdough mats.  My boys have LOVED using playdough, so I try to incorporate that in all aspects of their schooling.   This page is found here:  Alphabet Playdough Mats These dot painting pages were a HUGE hit with my daughter.  She loves all things art, so I try to add some for her to do each week.  She insisted on completing these pages with her brothers!   These pag
Read more

Pinecone Activities

-
Image
I have spent the last several weeks collecting pine cones to use with my kids for a few projects this winter. The first project we did was this turkey pine cone art project.  It was more difficult than I initially anticipated.  The feathers kept falling off the turkey, even after we glued them in.  Perhaps they would stick better with hot glue, but I am not comfortable with my 5 year old using a hot glue gun! We made a pine cone Christmas tree as well.  We painted the pine cone green and glued different colored pom poms to the inside of the cone. We made these cute pine cone owls as well!  Simply stuff the pine cone with cotton and glue eyes and a beak!  This makes a perfect craft for a winter animal or owl unit! We also painted with our pine cones.  We dipped our pine cones in paint and rolled them around our paper! We made rainbow pine cones to decorate our counter!  My daughter loved making the pine cone all different colors! We explored our pine cones
Read more

Letter F Activities

-
Image
Check out this post for activities all about the letter F! F is for feather!  Simply print off a letter F outline , give the student some feathers and have them make the letter F with their feathers! Build the letter F with pouch tops!  Print off the letter F mat to help guide students in making the letter F.  This is one of my son's favorite activities! Another one of my son's favorite activities are playdough mats !  I place the page in a page protector (playdough does not stick to page protectors!) so that the sheet can be reused. F is for fire!  We printed off the letter F on card stock .  I gave each of my kids red and yellow paint and a paint brush.  They painted their letter F with both colors, mixing to make orange as desired.  While the paint was still wet, they crumpled tissue paper to give texture. This is the same mat used for the playdough mats .  I simply removed it from the sleeve and we hunted for capital and lowercase letters in ma
Read more