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The Pumpkin Patch is filled with wonderful ideas for October and November activities that revolve around everyone's favorite fall symbol, the pumpkin. Kids love pumpkins and the many things they can do with them. You can incorporate pumpkins into your studies of the farm, harvest, autumn, falling leaves, Halloween, scarecrows, and Thanksgiving. On this page, you'll find songs and poems ... art, math, and science activities ... lots of books about pumpkins, from delightful stories to eye-catching science books ... suggested follow up activities ... a great list of pumpkin links ... terrific photos from our classroom and from the pumpkin patches I like to visit ... and much more. To find out more about a book, click on the cover or the title to go to Amazon.com, then use your browser's BACK button to return here for more great ideas. Amazon will save your books in your electronic shopping cart until you're ready to check out, now or anytime in the next 90 days. Enjoy your visit to The Pumpkin Patch. Happy Teaching! Victoria
Please visit my other Fall-themed online units:
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They chose me from my brothers,
"That's the nicest one!" they
said.
And they carved me out a face,
And put a candle in my head.
Then they set me on the doorstep,
Oh, the night was dark and
wild.
When they lit the candle,
Then I smiled!
Jack O' Happy
This is our "Happy Poem" for October: This is Jack O' Happy.
Things we do with this poem: I write a copy of the poem on a half sheet of colored railroad board, and decorate with appropriate pictures. The poem can be sung to the tune of "Sing a Song of Sixpence." We also chant/rap the poem while keeping time by slapping our knees with our hands, pausing at the end of each line. After practicing a few times, I add this card to my Song & Poetry Cards box for use during Literacy Centers.
I make two sets of sentence strips, using black and orange for alternating lines. I laminate my strips for extra durability. Place one set in the pocketchart and cut the other set into individual words. Staple a one-gallon ziplock freezer bag near the bottom of the pocket chart, and place the cut-up strips inside for the kids to match to the text in the pockets or to build the poem on the floor. Using two different colors (I use orange and black or orange and green) helps the kids make visual matches more quickly.
I have blackline masters of this poem from Scribbles N Dots, for making individual student books, which are kept in each child's Book Box. I use the same pictures in the pocketchart, to help emergent readers track the poem correctly. I've also enlarged the student book pages to Big Book size (then glued them to 12 x 18 construction paper), and have 2 copies available for reading during Literacy Centers and Self-Selected Reading. Some years I have the students paint the various pictures of Jack for another class Big Book, but only after they've learned the poem by heart.
If you have wall space available (beneath the chalkboard is a great spot), hang one set of pages for a Wall Book your students can read during Literacy Centers, as a Read the Room / Read the Walls activity. We use popsicle sticks (tips dipped in glue then in glitter) as Magic Reading Wands. You could also use pencils or chopsticks with Pumpkin Erasers glued to the ends for a fun seasonal Reading Wand.
Jack O' Happy makes a great Felt Board Story ... just cut pumpkins from felt and add features with a black marker.
On the day we carve pumpkins in class, I always carve a small pumpkin (5 to 6 inches tall) to resemble Jack O' Happy. If your school allows it, place a candle inside so the kids can learn the terrific autumn smell of roasting pumpkins. The following day, we chant or sing our Jack O' Happy poem several times, then I cut Jack into Pieces Small (the pieces are actually quite large, so that individual pieces are recognizable ... eyes, mouth, etc., maybe 5 or 6 pieces in all). I then gently place the pieces in a one-gallon glass pickle jar (using glass -- not plastic -- is very important, as plastic allows air to enter and gases/odors to escape). Once Jack in Pieces Small is inside the jar,
I place him on our
This is a fun project that the kids don't lose interest in, as Jack slowly softens and turns to mush. Some years, he even grows mold, but it's surprising how well Jack holds up inside that glass jar :o)
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Our Pumpkin Patch Wall
Each year we begin October
in the same way, by fingerpainting pumpkins for our Pumpkin Patch wall.
This basic bulletin board
stays in place all year long, though it's sometimes covered with plain
blue paper for other seasonal
activities -- that way, I
can leave the tree and fence in place and use them in the Fall and the
Spring for our various outdoor themed units.
The KinderKids each get a sheet
of plain white painting paper, with a glob of liquid starch in the middle.
Then they add a squirt of
yellow paint and a squirt of red paint, and swirl the colors together to
make an orange pumpkin shape.
When the pumpkins are dry,
I cut them out and add pre-printed labels with the children's names
(if you make these on your
computer printer, you'll always be ready to label projects).
This picture of the whole Pumpkin
Patch wall shows the tree covered with fall-colored leaves, which will
be
gradually removed as the leaves
fall down outside (which happens quite late here in Bakersfield ... we
still have
leaves coming down when we
return to school in January, after Winter Break).
The tree is labeled with sentence
strips identifying the colors of the leaves, and the scarecrow is labeled
with more difficult sentences,which
the children memorize and learn to track correctly as part of our Read
The Room
literacy center. As
they become better readers, they can "read" more of the words in the sentences,
not only on the wall but in
other contexts as well, and the words begin appearing in their daily writing.
The picture below shows how
the Pumpkin Patch wall grows throughout October and into November,
when we add our TLC
Scarecrows, which are part of my Scarecrow, Scarecrow
unit.
In November, we do a "Family
Turkey Project," which is a blackline turkey printed on cardstock.
The children take it home
and decorate it with their families, and then bring it back to school to
be added to the Pumpkin Patch wall.
All of the student artwork
comes off the wall the day before Thanksgiving, and then I cover the scarecrow,
tree, and fence
with blue paper to use as
a background for our Winter units. In early March, I remove the paper,
and we're ready to
begin using the fence, etc.,
for our Spring Units, which include Going Buggy
and Come Into The Garden.
The kids always get very excited
to see that the scarecrow has been hiding behind the paper all Winter.
If you'd like to see some close-up
photos of the turkeys,
click
here to visit the InMyRoom photo page from November 11, 2000.
Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden Glorious color photographs steal the show in this book on pumpkins in all their sumptuous rotundity and diversity. From the opening spread of a mound of giant pumpkins, dwarfing the preschooler nestled in their midst, to a concluding series of shots of a seed toothed jack-o' lantern gradually subsiding into the regenerative earth -- i.e., decomposing over time -- each spread is a visual delight.
The KinderKids love the Pumpkin Circle book! I keep it on the table next to our carved pumpkin while we watch the decomposition process. I chop up our jack o lantern and put him in a one gallon glass jar (so he's "Jack in pieces small," from the Jack O Happy poem) and we watch him turn slowly to sludge for the rest of the year. Lots of fun for the kids, and they get to record observations/drawings in a journal. I keep colored pencils, markers, and magnifying glasses with Jack for easy student access.
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I write these words on sentence strips, glue on a corresponding picture to help the children identify the words, then cut the strips apart into individual words with pictures. I use two or three different seasonal colors, and I make a matching set of words (each in the same color as its "twin") to place in front of the words with pictures. My students use the words
in their daily writing, and can go remove the word *without* the picture
in order to copy/spell it correctely. They have to leave the "picture
word" card in the pocket chart to assist in replacing their card correctly.
We're writing about pumpkins, too, after drawing or painting pumpkin pictures. Our focus is descriptive words, using two words per sentence in the following frame: My
pumpkin is ______ and ______.
At this time of year, I have sentence writing frames posted in several places around the room, to help the children write simple stories of 3 to 10 sentences each (depending on their motivation and excitement during writing time or when choosing writing as a free choice activity). After they conference with me about their writing, I help them "publish" their stories, which they illustrate using a variety of media ... crayons, markers, colored pencils, magazine pictures, water color paints, etc.
Published books are made of a 9" x 12" sheet of colored construction paper folded to make a 6" x 9" cover. The front cover has a 4" x 5" piece of white construction paper already glued in place for their cover illustration. I write the book title at the top of the cover, and the author's name and publication date at the bottom, so that it looks like this:
I use folded 8 1/2" x 11" photocopy paper to make the pages, with the open edges of the paper stapled into the cover. This makes pages double-thick and much more durable. I never laminate any part of these student books.
Inside is a Title Page (which they illustrate), and numbered book pages, with their sentences written one to a page with the writing at the top of each page (I do this to model where to put the writing for when they begin publishing on their own -- if they begin writing at the top of the page, they never run out of room :o)
If they write an even number of sentences, there will be a blank page at the end of their book. I don't number this page, but I do write The End in large letters in the middle of it, to curb their desire to keep illustrating after the story is finished.
Once a week, I have another staff member (principal, custodian, Healthy Start coordinator, another teacher, etc.) review my students' books that were published that week, to select the three "best" books, which get large gold peel-and-stick seals on them. The kids love getting Writing Awards that look like Caldecott Medals! We use a variety of criteria for judging books, so that all students have several award-winning books throughout the year: Most Colorful, Longest Story, Shortest Story, Best Pumpkin Story, Best Non-Fiction Story, Most Words with the Letter P, etc.
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Veggies from Avila Barn, on our Science Table.
The KinderKids love to weigh, measure, touch, sort, and explore these squashes, gourds, pumpkins, and the dried corn.
Try this with an ear of dried
decorative corn: remove the husk/leaves, and place two ears of corn
in a clear glass baking dish. Add water until half of the corn is
under water. Change the water a couple times a week to keep it from
getting cloudy, and add water as needed. In a few days, you'll have
dozens of corn plants sprouting from the top half of the corn ears.
Click
here to see my online Emergent Reader titled: I Went To The Farm.
Your students will enjoy reading
this interactive story,
illustrated with photos of
farm animals and vegetables taken at Avila Barn.
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Pumpkin Counting Game
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Pumpkin
Songs and Poems
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Projects
from the Sunset Magazine Website
photos
copyright by Sunset Magazine
Handpainted
Party Pumpkins from Sunset Magazine Website
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 Check out Sunset Magazine's pumpkin carving instructions, too. |
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an educator, literacy coach, and freelance writer with extensive experience teaching kindergarten and first grade in California, and mentoring teachers around the world. Victoria teaches teachers throughout the United States and Canada, at district and school site inservices, state and regional conferences, and her very popular KinderKorner Balanced Literacy Workshops.
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