PUMPKIN DAY!!!

Today was Pumpkin Day!!! A completely, made up on the spot, catchy way to gain interest this morning when the kids came in to read the board! The best part was when we were reading the message, a little guy raised his hand and was very concerned. He said, "Mrs. Cervantes, my family doesn't celebrate pumpkin day." He looked so worried because he didn't know what it was or what we were going to do, it was priceless!

What IS Pumpkin Day?

We read a book called How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? The kids LOVED that in the end of the book it was the smallest pumpkin that had the greatest amount of seeds. The first thing we did was have a jack-o'-lantern drawing contest. The entire class submitted a picture of a face for me to carve into our class pumpkin. The class voted on one final drawing.

As they went to library, I desperately tried to carve this pumpkin into a cat face with whiskers and eyelashes. FAIL. The kids were very gracious and told me it looked great! Thank goodness my husband always cleans mine up at home after I try to carve one each year!

Next, we decided to count seeds and group them by specific numbers. The kids each put their hands in the pumpkin to pull out a goopy hanful of seeds. Each table chose a different number to group the seeds. We had groups of 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 11! This made some very complex adding in the end.

Next, we counted how many groups we had of each number. The kids then guessed which table would have the most seeds. Then they had to add their seeds and write down the strategy they used to add. The table of 11's knew that each time they added a group of 11 they only needed to add 10 and then 1 more. The table of 2's simply counted by 2's!

Last we added all the numbers together!! It was in the 300's. We talked about adding the decade (tens place) to the large number before adding the ones.
EX/ 75+57=
70+50+5+7=
120+12=
120+10+2=
132
Common Core at it's finest!

We ended with an experiment. Place baking soda inside the pumpkin. Add vinegar and watch it bubble out of the pumpkin face!!! Thank you Levi for being the scientist:)