You can read the book "It's Pumpkin Time!" by Zoe Hall to your students as they sit in their reading circle. This is a story that your students will enjoy as they hear about the two young children in the story helping to plant pumpkins in their garden. The book's detailed illustrations will teach your students about the life cycle of the pumpkin from a tiny seed to a fully grown pumpkin. They will also enjoy the book's story line that ends on Halloween night.
To see how pumpkins develop you can plan walking field trips to your local community garden or a bus field trip to a nearby arboretum at a college or university. Arrange to have a guide show you around the gardens to help the students learn about the different types of plants growing there. At the pumpkin patch, look for the pumpkin's stages of development and have the students find the largest and smallest pumpkins in the patch. Take pictures of the field trips for your science bulletin board. When you return to school have your students draw an illustration and write a paragraph or twp about the trip. Make a field-trip bulletin board to display your students' drawins and photos from the trip.
For this activity you will need two to three large pumpkins, newspaper, small sturdy paper bowls, a roasting pan, cookie sheets, a small pot, a measuring cup, large spoons and salt (which is optional). Have your students help spread the newspaper on their craft tables or on the floor. Place a small paper bowl next to each student and let him know it is for the pumpkin seeds he finds. Cut off the top of each pumpkin and, using a large spoon, scoop seeds out of the pumpkin and place a scoop of the seeds in front of each student. Show students how to pull the pumpkin goo and string off of their pumpkin seeds, then place the seeds in their bowls. Have the students continue this process until all the seeds have been cleaned.
Let your students empty their bowls into a large plastic tub halfway filled with water. Then let them clean up, sit at their desks and write and draw a picture about the activity in their science journal. While they are writing you can finish cleaning the seeds. (If you want salty seeds, boil two cups of water and two teaspoons of salt in a small pot until the salt disappears. Pour the cleaned pumpkin seeds into a roasting pan and pour the salt brine over them then leave it for 10 minutes, then rinse off the seeds with water.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray nonstick spray on the cookie sheets, then spread the seeds onto the sheets and bake for 10 minutes; mix the seeds with a spoon after five minutes. When the seeds are a light golden brown take them out of the oven and let them cool. The seeds can be eaten with or without their thin shell.
Your students will need Pumpkin Life Cycle worksheets, crayons, scissors, construction paper and glue sticks. Read the book "It's Pumpkin Time!" again and review the pumpkin life cycle illustrations at the back of the book. Show the students your model of the pumpkin cycle. Explain how you cut out the pumpkin growth steps and glued them to the construction paper beginning from the seed to the fully grown pumpkin. Then have your students go to their seats and make their own pumpkin life cycles.