Pondering Pumpkins

Isn’t our leaf quilt great? This is what we made a few weeks ago at our leaf class! 

Halloween is just around the corner, and what better to do at homeschool today than explore pumpkins! We began the day with a game of cops and robbers, which Noor suggested.  It is a tag game with one cop, one prison guard and the rest were robbers. It was a hit!

We came in and started our morning circle with a jack-o-lantern greeting. Each person was given a jack-o-lantern card with a different face on it, and had to go find their match. When we found our match, we sat with that person and introduced them to the group. For example, Xav’s partner said, “This is Xav,” and the group said, “Good morning Xav.”

Then we shared home projects. What creativity! Owen and Connor shared their apple dolls that they made last year. They were so awesome, I think everyone wanted to go home and make their own! One student said their family wasn’t big into baking with apples, but that Apple computers were very important to their family! Haha!

Next we read a pumpkin poem. Kids helped illustrate the story by putting felt pieces on the flannel board.

 We got in the Halloween spirit with a pumpkin chant with hand motions that I learned when I was four. Most kids had heard it already too: it was “Five Little Pumpkins.”  

We read the morning message, which introduced our daily theme: Pondering Pumpkins, and our toughest password yet: curcubitaceae (pumpkin family). At first the password was daunting but then we had a look at the nature table, which was full of different curcubits: pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers. Melons and watermelons are curcubits too. Turns out most homeschoolers had harvested and/or eaten curcubits before! 

  

Soon it was time to begin our morning activity: a pumpkin inquiry. Kids got into three groups to investigate three pumpkins of different sizes. First we spent some time guessing at how many seeds our pumpkins would have and how much they would weigh. Then we weighed them and opened them up to count the seeds! Kids became very enthusiastic about counting seeds; they wanted to see whose pumpkins would have the most!  I showed them a counting strategy so that they wouldn’t have to keep big numbers in their heads. There were stacks of orange cards that we lay out on the tables, and kids put ten seeds on them each. That way they only had to count ten at a time. Lunchtime came and went but kids wanted to keep counting! Finally we finished and had a lunch break in the lovely fall sunshine.

 

 Some helpers collected soil for a pumpkin decomposition project we started later. 

 We read a pumpkin story while we waited for our scale to arrive! It told us the story of how a pumpkin seed grows, with some beautiful photos!

 Here is a photo progression of how one pumpkin decomposes. Can't wait to see what ours will do!

 When our scale arrived, it was a challenge to be able to see exactly what the number was!

 Scooping pumpkin slime AND collecting seeds!  What hard work!

Soon it was time for our outdoor adventure, which began with a clue: “Monarchs may stop here on their migration route.” We embarked on a quest, finding clue after clue on the trails, like “This special tree has leaves bigger than rabbit ears!” and “This spot gives you a beautiful view of the Holyoke Range.” Kids ran to each spot looking for the clues. What a gorgeous day for a run in the woods! We ended at the Hitchcock Center picnic tables, where there were pumpkin medals with different titles such as “Pumpkinologist” and “Pumpkin King” for each person.

 One of the clues led us to the "pregnant tree"! This growth is called a burl.

                                     

 This is the pumpkin graveyard: leftover pumpkins from Enchanted Forest.

Then it was time to go inside to finish counting our seeds. The final count was: 671 (biggest pumpkin), 564 (medium pumpkin), and 560 (smallest pumpkin). Wow! Kids were such enthusiastic pumpkin seed counters!

 Counting seeds by tens!

Next we had some time to write in our journals. We glued in our pumpkin sheets and recorded the date, theme, password, and the day’s weather.

We began a decomposition project with one of the pumpkins by preparing a decomposition tank with some soil. I carved a face into it and put it into the tank so we can watch what happens over the next few weeks at homeschool. Look for pictures of this soon!

Last of all, we gathered around to have some apple crisp, courtesy of Theresa and her family. Thank you Theresa!

For those of you who were not here today, our home project for next time is as follows:

  Home Project: Curcubit Experts

Pick one!

A. Cook a pumpkin treat with your family and share about it with homeschool at the next class.

B. Find out what all curcubits have in common.

C. Find the most unusual curcubit you can. What is interesting about it?

Apples A-peel To Me

Wow, after homeschool class I always wish there was more time in the day!  Today we became pomologists - fruit scientists - as we explored all aspects of the apple. When kids first arrived, some of them painted using the apple stamps I had put out: apples cut horizontally produce a star shape in the middle, which can make for fun art!

We headed outside and played a running-around game of Spiders and Flies, in which flies tried to avoid the spider's web. We came inside for morning circle and started off with a greeting called, "Apple Did You Know?" Children picked an apple card from the basket and greeted their neighbor, saying "Good morning, did you know that..."  and read their card.  The cards had apple facts such as "Did you know that apples are a member of the rose family? They are related to strawberries, apricots, peaches, and roses!" 


Then we sang a song called "This is my trunk I'm an apple tree" with hand motions to demonstrate an apple tree throughout the seasons.  Next we read the morning message. Today's theme is "Apples a-peel to me" and the password is "pomology."  As always, I broke the word up into smaller pieces so we could understand it. Pom is Latin for "fruit" and ology means "the study of".  Kids noticed the similarity of pom to "palm" and "pollination".  Words can be so tricky! 





Then it was time for our morning activity: a survey of our favorite apple variety. There were three to choose from: Cortland, Granny Smith, and Honey Crisp. First the homeschoolers sampled them, and recorded their favorites on a survey chart.


Then they went around the building in teams to survey the Hitchcock Center staff.  Staff members were very excited to have a break to taste apples, and thought very hard about which ones they liked best!

 

When they recorded all their data, we returned to the classroom and began to graph our results. We had to pause though, because it was time to leave for our field trip!  We hopped in the van and headed off to Small Ones Farm in Amherst.


What a beautiful place!  A friendly black cat came up to greet us as we climbed out of the van, and campers noticed all the chickens roaming around the orchard. We greeted Sally and J.C., two of the farmers, and then walked over to a circle of apple boxes and had a seat. They told us that today they were planting garlic in the fields. Farmer Bob came from the garlic fields and showed us a sticky red insect trap that is shaped like an apple and told us about how a big job of apple farmers is to fend off insects.


Bob told us that it is important not to eat apples that have fallen on the ground because they get dirty, but that it was OK to feed them to their 750-lb. pig named Cutie Pie. So homeschoolers grabbed some buckets and headed out to the apple trees to collect "drops" to feed to the pig.

 
 

They hauled five 5-gallon buckets full of drops from a Mutsu apple tree back to the pig's pen. She wasn't out, so we tossed some apples over the fence. Farmer Bob said that the sound of the apples dropping on the ground would lure her out. Sure enough, she came wandering out - she is HUGE! It seemed like too many apples for one pig, but we tossed them all over and she didn't stop eating the whole time we watched her. Wow!
Then we regrouped and began our apple scavenger hunt. Homeschoolers wandered around the orchard searching for items like "a bird on an apple tree" and "a perfect apple on the ground."  It was a nice opportunity to appreciate the beautiful farm. 



 

Afterwards we gathered to have lunch. While we munched, Farmer Sally showed us some different varieties of apples grown at the farm. She said they grow about forty varieties now and that number is going up. She passed around a Red Delicious, Liberty, Golden Delicious, and Asian pear, pointing out the differences. Then she described the different ways insects can affect the fruits, and passed around a few examples. And then - yum! - she showed us some of their products sold at their farm stand - pie, cider, and cider vinegar!


Before long it was time to go back to the Hitchcock Center. We got right to work on finishing our apple tasting survey, and it had surprising results! Cortlands and Honey Crisps were almost a tie, with Granny Smiths only getting one vote!

Then we worked on our journals, gluing in our scavenger hunts and some photos Anne had printed. Then we shared our "Meet a tree" home projects from last time - kids did an excellent job showing the leaves, bark and pictures of the tree. Before we said goodbye, kids went over to today's nature table, which instead of being related to apples, was set up with fossils and crystals I had found on a trip to Pennsylvania last month. The fossils are 300 million year old ferns in shale, found at a site world famous for white fern fossils. The crystals were found on a steep cliff in an abandoned strip mine. Cool! I was thrilled kids wanted to take some home. And then, poof! Class was over.  It always flies by.