Have children hold string next to their pumpkins from the top of their stems to the bottom of the body. You can help cut the strings so they are about the right length of the height of the pumpkin. Now, you have several strings of different lengths that can be laid next to one another to create a graph all on their own.
If you use yarn, each child could have a different color so they know which one is theirs. Otherwise, you need to label the strings so the children can remember which one is theirs. These varying lengths of string can be used for comparisons, for sequencing and for documenting the different heights of the pumpkins.
Another way to measure the height of the pumpkins is by using Unifix cubes. The children can put the cubes together until they are the same height as their pumpkin. You can then count the cubes to see which pumpkin is the tallest and which pumpkin is the shortest. 
Lots of kids know that there are seeds inside of a pumpkin. They may have seen them if they carved Jack-o-Lanterns during October. They may have even toasted them and had a tasty treat. My older sister was allergic to pumpkin, so my dad tied garbage bags to her arms (all the way up to her armpits) so she could dig into the pumpkins with the rest of us, as it was a slimy-good time.
Small children love guessing games. They want a turn to guess, even if their guess is way off. They don’t care and neither should you. The purpose of estimation in the early years is to give children a chance to guess at the quantity of something or the frequency of an occurrence.
The fun part of pumpkin seed estimation is that you can do it in stages.
First, I would have the children estimate how many seeds there are inside the pumpkin BEFORE opening it up. That way, they can simply put a number out there as a complete guess. You can write down their estimations on a large sheet of paper so they can see who guessed what.
Next I would open the top of the pumpkin and have each child look down into it. That way they can get a sense of how full the pumpkin is with seeds. Then they can estimate again. Write down this number next to their first guess. You can then talk about why their guesses are the same or different, bigger or smaller.
For the third stage, I would have the children scoop the seeds onto a large baking pan and then rinse them off. That way they can see the separate seeds, without all of the pulp attached to them. Have them estimate a third time. Write this number down next to the first two. Are they the same or different? Are children changing their estimations based on observations or are they still guessing?
Finally, you count the seeds. It may be easiest to put the seeds into piles of 10, even though I wouldn’t expect the children to be able to count by tens. They could help you count to ten several times and you could then tell them the total. Compare this number to their estimations and discuss.
Even though children may eat the seeds at home, do NOT cook them at your center. Seeds are a choking hazard for young children.
]]>
Pumpkins have natural grooves in them that go from the root of the stem to the bottom. The are usually parallel to one another and create this sense of having “stripes” all around.
It might be fun to have the children paint their pumpkins as a “last hurrah” for the pumpkin unit. (I would probably do some sort of cooking activity as well – i.e. healthy pumpkin bread.) Painting the pumpkins with a pattern of color might be interesting to some of the children. You could show them the stripes and then explain that patterns are something that repeat in a predictable way. If you have an American flag, you could show the children the red and white stripes and explain that the red,white, red, white, design is a pattern, because it repeats.
Ask the children if they want to make patterns on their pumpkins. Some may, some may not. Some may want to simply paint their pumpkins in their own creative way. I would encourage that as well. For those who want to create a pattern, ask them what colors they want in their patterns and then set them up with the paint, pumpkin, and brushes, on a covered table. This one is gonna get messy!
]]>
This time of year is filled with all the goodness that a bountiful harvest can bring. In nearly every country/community in the world, harvest time is one that is celebrated with food and festivity. Of course, Americans often celebrate Thanksgiving as a time to be grateful for what we have. Not all people celebrate holidays in the same way, so I prefer to leave them at home, where they belong. However, the themes that run through special times of the year are perfect for exploration with children.
As we bring in the month of November, you may be able to find pumpkins at closeout special prices- I mean CHEAP. Once Halloween is over, people are generally finished buying pumpkins, which makes them the perfect early childhood item for exploration.
Many of the ideas about apples we explored during September can be revisited with pumpkins. Click here and here and here for those ideas. Instead of making apple sauce, you can make pumpkin butter, but everything else fits.
Since pumpkins are so much bigger than apples, children may be really excited to get their very own pumpkin to explore. It might be really fun to pull out the bathroom scale and show the children how to weigh their pumpkins. You can then graph their weights and put them in order from lightest to heaviest. The most interesting part of this experiment is that you may find that the biggest pumpkin (the one that LOOKS the biggest) does not weigh the most. This will create a great discussion with the children.
This book tells the story of a pumpkin so big that the witch who grew it cannot lift it so she asks all of her friends to help her. 