Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great holiday!!  

In case you are missing your turkey time, here are a few pictures to take you back! 

Pumpkins Part 2

Kindergarten has been all about pumpkins for a while--we even took a great trip to the pumpkin patch!!

 So after lots of research and real life pumpkin experiences, we tried to get our pumpkins moving!  We have lots of experiences with pushes and pulls.

So moving our pumpkins with different types of pushes and pulls seemed like the obvious next step!  We finally decided that pushes were the best way to get our pumpkins moving!

Then we started thinking about that thumpin', bumpin' runaway pumpkin that we read about in The Runaway Pumpkin.  The students and I worked together to create a ramp to roll pumpkins.  We looked for ways to make our pumpkins roll faster and farther, and we were even able to use what we had learned about gravity from our marble paintings to help us make predictions and new discoveries.

After helping me to create a pretty great pumpkin ramp, the kids decided they were ready to try it out themselves.  Students worked in groups of four to create their own pumpkin ramps.  We talked, designed, created, and improved our way to some really cool ramps.

There was a lot of pumpkin moving, but we also did some investigating while our pumpkins were still.

We found out that not only do pumpkins sometimes look different on the outside--they can look and SMELL different on the inside!

We also found out that pumpkin seeds can be different sizes and colors too!

(Sorry there's no pictures--we were all up to our ears in pumpkin goop, with no one to run the camera!)

And..you can eat the seeds too!  Just add a little butter, sugar, and cinnamon and you have a yummy pumpkin snack!

Most people agreed with me!