Pumpkins, Pumpkins

As you might imagine, it is a pretty exciting week in Kindergarten.  Halloween is only three sleeps away.  The anticipation and excitement is in the air at Northview.  With that in mind, Ms. Arboe and I set out to plan and implement some fun pumpkin math activities.

This morning, Ms. Arboe met with each of the students.  The students' job was to cut a piece of yard that they thought would be the same as the circumference of our class pumpkin.  Now, circumference is a BIG word.  But we learned that it means the distance around the outside of an object, like a pumpkin!

   

After lunch, we all got our pieces of yarn out and our Pumpkin Math book.  Ms. Arboe helped each of us wrap our string around the circumference of our pumpkin.  Then we had to determine if our yarn was too short, too long or just right!

   

Once we determined this, we hung our yarn pieces on a huge paper pumpkin.  Then we recorded our results in our pumpkin math booklet.

   

Look at our results.  We had only one student the estimated the circumference correctly, but that is OK because an estimate is a guess and sometimes they aren't right!

Next it was time to estimate how long (or tall) we are, using pumpkins.  We had 10 pumpkins lined up in the middle of our circle area.  We had to estimate how many pumpkins long we each were and record our estimates on the chart.

   

After this, we had to lay down next to the pumpkins and measure ourselves to determine how many pumpkins long we actually are.  Then we recorded this data on the chart.

   

We are learning that estimating is kind of tricky sometimes.  We like to be right about things and when you estimate, you are not always right.  Mrs. Kurt and Ms. Arboe keep reminding us that it's OK!