Pumpkin Life Cycle work

A new seasonal science activity in the classroom this week is the Pumpkin Life Cycle work.  To introduce the concept of the pumpkin life cycle, I will read the book Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by George Levenson out loud to the children at line time.  I got the idea for this project as well as the free printable pictures from A to Z Teacher Stuff.

After reading the story out loud, I will show the children how they can make their own "pumpkin" with a "vine" showing the parts of the pumpkin's life cycle.  This work will be set up on top of one of my science shelves.  On the backside of this shelf are two small tables.  I will have the children do this work at those tables and I have my sample for them to copy attached to the back of the shelf as a reference.  See photo below.

This photo shows the materials on the top of the shelf, the two tables, and the sample project attached to the back of the shelf. 

This basket holds the "pumpkins" with "vines" attached.  I decided that the purpose of this project is to color and sequence the pictures for the life cycle of a pumpkin.  Therefore, I prepared the pumpkins ahead of time. For each pumpkin, I used two orange paper plates.  I cut out a section of one of the plates and stapled them on top of one another with the orange sides showing.  To make the "rounded" part of the pumpkin, I kind of pushed out the middle of the outer (cut) plate to invert it.  I hope that makes sense.  I also stapled the green stem onto each pumpkin and taped a length of green yarn inside for the "vine."

Next to the pumpkins are a bowl with a glue stick and colored pencils and a basket of pictures to be colored.  Each set of pictures is paper-clipped together, but out of sequence.

Next to the above materials is a tray with vinyl gluing mats.

To do this work, the child will take a pumpkin, the bowl of pencils/glue, a set of pictures, and a gluing mat.  They will place these materials on one of the tables directly behind the shelf so they can refer to my sample.  Their first step will be to color all the pictures.  Then they will lay out the pictures in sequence, starting with the seed and ending with the orange pumpkin.  Once they have this much done, they must tap a teacher's shoulder to have her check their work.  After their work has been checked, they will glue each picture onto their yarn (they fold the pictures in half and place the yarn in the middle) in order.  They will probably need some adult supervision for this.  We'll see.  When finished, the "vine" of pictures can be stored inside the pumpkin "pocket."  Below is a photo of the finished pumpkin and vine.  NOTE:  The reverse side of the pictures has a word describing the picture (i.e. "seed", "sprout", etc.)

Comments

[RM]

Once again, I LOVE IT!!