Pumpkin Stations

Every Halloween my class does pumpkin stations. There are about 4 to 5 wonderful parents that volunteer to lead a group in different activities involving a pumpkin. It gets gooey and sticky, but it is so much fun! I absolutely love pumpkin station day.

This is the first year that I have used Tangled Up In Teaching's "It's All About Pumpkins" unit. For the most part, I think that it was a success. I typed up my own instructions for the parents. If you want them, you can email me, and I will send them to you. There were portions of the papers that were a bit small for first grade writing, but it was adorable and got the students estimating and doing more activities than I usually have them do. I did not have any time to spare in the end, which sometimes happens during stations. Students were asked to do different things with their groups pumpkin. Many started off by measuring the circumference. This required them to wrap a string around their pumpkin, take it off, and measure it using a ruler or yard stick.

When the students were done, they would bring up their string and I would place it on a poster. This shows how large all of our pumpkins were. I have had this poster for 4 years. I made one, laminated it, and I keep using it year after year. Next year might be time for a new one, but it has held up really well. 

Students also had to see if their pumpkin floated or sank. First, they guessed what would happen. Then, they took their pumpkin out to one of two bins filled with water and put their pumpkin inside. This might have been one of the more exciting activities. Some students could not believe that a pumpkin as big as theirs floated. 

They also had to guess and weigh their pumpkin. I was s busy running around that I forgot to take a picture of this. I had to weigh the pumpkins to make sure that my scale would work. I had brought my scale from home and each pumpkin had to be placed in a certain spot or it would read error. I let the parents know ahead of time and there did not seem to be any issues with it. The one issue I had was finding my counting cubes to measure the height. The students just used their ruler. I later found them in an unusual place. :)

The best part of the stations is the cutting open and carving of the pumpkins. For some, this is the first time feeling the inside of a pumpkin. I had some parents that brought fabulous knives and just got right in there. Of course, only parents were able to use the knives. The students got carving sets. 

Counting seeds is great practice. The students counted by 2, 5, and 10's until 100. The worksheet was small, so many just started to put them down in piles on the table tops. Most groups counted up all of their seeds, which was cool to see because these pumpkins had a lot of seeds. 

After all of the literacy and math activities comes the carving. We ends up with some very different pumpkins this year. They students shows team work and creativity when choosing how to carve their pumpkin. I think my favorite was the half cat, half bat pumpkin.