Pumpkins! Unit Study: Final Day (At Last)

“All right, children. Wipe your noses. We have a pumpkin to cut open.”

The crowd went wild!

Our poor pumpkin has awaited his morbid fate date with destiny for so many days, looking down upon us from the top of the refrigerator like a round, orange prince. Yesterday, we finally got to finish our pumpkin unit study with a pumpkin mutilation dissection.

The children were so ready to cut him open but first, we did some estimations.

Carving a pumpkin is truly a sensory activity from start to finish. Just think about all the textures your child encounters!

I asked the children to feel the pumpkin. We came up with as many adjectives as possible to describe the pumpkin.

Next, we estimated the circumference of the pumpkin. I had the children pull yarn from a skein and cut it when they thought it would be long enough to fit around. We then took turns testing our guesses.

When we went to weigh our pumpkin, I asked each child about their own weight. Then, I asked each to hold the pumpkin and guess its weight. The funny thing was that the children thought the pumpkin would weigh what they weigh. So glad that it didn’t!

Time to see if the pumpkin would sink or float. I pulled the largest bowl from the cabinet and it was almost not large enough but YES! The pumpkin did float.

After drying the pumpkin off, we cut off the top. I cut small pieces from the pulp and asked the children if they wanted to taste it. Ruble was the only one brave enough and he loved it so much that he kept asking for more.

I seriously thought that when it came time to scoop out the brains that my ick-avoiding children would balk. Nope. They dug right in. Franc did make several trips to the bathroom to wash his hands but we successfully got all of the fibrous strands and seeds from the inside of the pumpkin.

I asked, “How are we going to count all of these seeds? By tens?”

Lira responded, “No, Mommy. By NINES.”

Are you kidding me?

Seeds counted. It was time to roast them. So, we washed, drained, oiled and salted. While we waited for them to cook, Lira asked if we could carve a face on our pumpkin.

I am very much opposed to the history of the Jack-o-Lantern but I remembered the devotion about how we are a mess inside before we ask Jesus to come into our lives. Then, when we seek forgiveness for our sins, Jesus removes all the yucky stuff and puts His light in us. We discussed how God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)
With that in mind, we carved the silliest pumpkin we could…

Lira drew a picture of what she thought the pumpkin should look like first. Eye lashes and curly hair? Really! Thank goodness for the pipe cleaners given to us by CraftProjectIdeas.com. How else would you make a pumpkin grow curly hair?

The lapbooks did not get as full as I had wanted but sometimes, when you have sick kids, you just have to accept what you get.

Get these printables in the Fall Printable Bundle here.