Fall Study Continued... leaves and apples

I wanted to start this post by sharing the final products of a couple things we finished up this week that were started last week.  The first thing we finished up was our sun catcher leaf murals.  The students were excited to see them hung from the ceiling. 

 We also completed our leaf rubbing murals.  The students painted over the leaf rubbings with liquid watercolor paints.  We hung them in our classroom, but I didn't get a complete picture of them.   I just have one where I cropped half of them out from the background of another photo.

"It's like I'm a real painter."- Andrew

Before we visited the farm last week, we investigated apples.  We looked the similarities and differences between different varieties of apples.  Students used magnifying glasses to look at details and used colored pencils and crayons to document their findings.  We read this book before investigating the apples!

The students enjoyed the apple activities, but after visiting Tuken's farm, they were so enthusiastic about pumpkins we just moved on.  My philosophy of teaching enables me to see what the students are excited about and dive in to learn about it.  We have now moved on to studying pumpkins!  The children couldn't be more thrilled.  

Mrs. Atkin

Pumpkin Fall Study

As I mentioned in our previous post, the students are thrilled about pumpkins.  After visiting the pumpkin patch, picking a pumpkin off the vine, and seeing all the beautiful squash we had to move onto studying pumpkins.  

This last week we began using our pumpkins as a non-standard form of measurement.  We measured the circumference with Lego's that connect at the ends. 

We measured the stems of the pumpkins with unifix cubes. 

And, we measured our bodies!  Some of us were 8 pumpkins long!

On Friday, we brought a giant pumpkin in our classroom and left it sitting in our meeting area.  Of course the pumpkin gained a lot of attention and the students couldn't wait to hear what we were going to do with it.  Before doing anything, we made predictions of how many seeds were in that giant pumpkin.  (You will be able to see that Friday was also P.J. Day.  At the end of this post you will find a couple group photos!)

How many seeds do you think are in this pumpkin?  Make your prediction in the comments section.  We will count the seeds this week and I will reveal the final amount in our next blog post.  

We sat in a big circle and together we took all the seeds out of this giant pumpkin.

Finally we had two friends separate the seeds from the pulp.  

I brought the seeds home to clean, and dry.  They dried all day Saturday on wax paper.  

I didn't count them because the students will get to count them this week. 

All of the seeds from that giant pumpkin fit neatly in a sandwich size bag.  Leave your prediction in the comment section.  We will reveal the amount of seeds in our next blog post. 

We look forward to studying more about pumpkins and learning about it's life cycle.  We also can't wait to share our discoveries with you.  Have a brilliant week and again, leave your prediction below!!!  

P.S. Check out our friends in P.J.'s!

Leaves

Last week we ended our week by sketching a beautiful tree on our playground.  I'm so happy we did because after the windy weather, all the leaves are on the ground with the exception of a few.  Monday we took a walk around our school to collect some leaves. 

We used the leaves we collected to graph our favorite leaf color.  

 We found that the students liked the red leaves the best.  

 Next, we took another leaf from our collection to sketch.  We looked at the shape, color, and size of the leaves. 

We then took leaves we found on our walk and created some leaf rubbings. 

(I made these crayons over the summer.  They are easy to make.  If you are interested...  unwrap old crayons, cut them into small pieces, put them in a muffin tin with like colors (no cupcake paper), put them in the oven on 230 for about 15 minutes.  Let them cool or pop them in the oven for a bit.  You then have some really amazing crayons!  You can google "homemade crayons" or visit this link for a picture step-by-step process of how to make them.  

http://www.somewhatsimple.com/homemade-crayons/)

With being busy on our field trip we were unable to complete our leaf rubbing murals.  I will be sure to post some photos once they are completed.  

We also made leaf sun catchers! They have not been hung (again from being busy with our field trip) but they will be soon!

 

I will post some pictures of our final creations next week.  I hope you have all had a fantastic weekend.  Take care and I look forward to sharing next weeks investigations with you soon!