Pumpkin Investigation

Well, only one more sleep until the big day.  Since we are so close to Halloween, we thought we would keep the pumpkin theme going.  We have a pretty large classroom pumpkin, so we decided to find out how much it weighs.  There is a special tool to measure how much something weighs.  It is called a scale.  We learned that there are many different kinds of scales.

   

First we each tried to lift the pumpkin.  Some of us thought this was easy and some of us thought it was hard.  Since we had to weigh the pumpkin and none of our classroom scales were big enough, Ms. Arboe asked the school nurse if we could borrow her scale.  It looks like the one at the doctor's office!

Next we decided to weigh some other objects and predict if they were lighter or heavier than our pumpkin.

   

Then it came time to weigh the pumpkin...it weighs 25 pounds!  Look at the chart that we recorded the information on.

   

Next we did a pumpkin investigation.  An investigation is when you find out information about something.  We used a different pumpkin for this activity.  We needed to describe the outside of the pumpkin, count the lines, describe the inside and count the seeds.

We used the chart paper to record all of our ideas.  Then came the fun part.  Mrs. Kurt carved the top of the pumpkin open and we had to clean it out.  Luckily, there were lots of volunteers to help with this because Mrs. Kurt doesn't like to touch the pumpkin guts!

   

 

We have learned lots about estimating this week.  After we estimated how many seeds were inside the pumpkin, we counted them.  We figured out there were 331 seeds inside one pumpkin.  Wow!

Wait until you see what we do with the pumpkin tomorrow!

It was a fun day!

More Pumpkin Math

We did some more Pumpkin Math activities today.  Ms. Arboe asked us what would happen if we put a pumpkin in water.  Would it sink?  Would it float?  She asked us to tell her what we thought!

Then she passed the pumpkin around the circle and we got to feel how heavy it was.  After we felt it, she asked us again if we thought it would sink or float.  Some of us did change our answers after we held the pumpkin.

  

There was only one way to discover if a pumpkin would sink or float, so we put it in some water.

And guess what?  It floated!  Pumpkins do float!  We recorded this information in our Pumpkin Math Book.

   

We also played a Math matching game.  We had to match the number on the pumpkin with the pumpkin that had matching ten frame.  It was a game kind of like "Memory".  We loved it and we got so excited every time one of our friends found a match!

   

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

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!

More Sequencing and Trees

On Thursday, Ms. Arboe read us another version of the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  When she finished, she handed out puppets and we got to practice retelling the story!  Retelling means to tell the story over (or again) to another person.  It's important to remember to tell the events of the story in the correct sequence.  Otherwise, it won't make any sense!

   

This was a really fun activity and we learned about how important sequence is.  Next Ms. Arboe gave us a set of eight pictures.  These pictures were of events from the story she read to us.  Now came the tricky part...we had to put the pictures in the correct sequence, glue them on a piece of red paper, color them and then retell the story to a friend.  It was hard work, but we did an awesome job!

   

   

After that busy project, we had to work on our tree book.  Remember the nature walk we took on Wednesday?  Well, we used the things we collected to complete the book.  We added labels, illustrated

the pictures and added the bark, branches and leaves.  We hope you looked at our books...we were very proud of them!