I could share many a story of homeschool days in our household which haven't worked out as planned. Life has that annoying knack of not being entirely predictable, and we become masters of rolling with the punchesa. Well, today, we ctually had a day that worked out even better than planned.... and all thanks to a humble relative of the squsah - a pumpkin.

Yes I know I'm a month late to have discovered the joys of pumpkins, but they're half price at Asda so I stocked up and then wondered what on earth I would do with them all. Well, here's what we did today:

1 Measured and weighed the pumpkins. Recorded their circumference and discussed about a 'sphere' shape with our youngest. Discusseed maths behind radius and circumference with oldest.

2 Lned up a line of various fruit and veg alongside the pumpkin and we discussed symmetry and why the leaves were green (photosynthesis) and vitamins found in various coloured fruit.

3Then, one by one we dropped them in a bucket of water to see if these veg floated or sunk. I had my oldest estimate the results before we started, put his 'bouyancy' and displacement' knowledge to the test. Then we discussed the results (do YOU think a carrot would float?)

4 Then I got out just three colours of acrylic paints and had them paint a picture of the pumpkin before them . The only problem was I only gave them red, yellow and blue....so they had to combine colours to get the colours they needed.This kept  youngest quiet for ages (heh heh)

5 The we each estimated how many seeds were in the pumpkin, and opened them up to see who was closest. We separated the flesh and seeds and talked about the history of pumpkins, especially their importance to the early settlers of America. The kids started squeezing the slippery seeds at each other and a rampant game ensued, especially when they realised this was a game probably familiar to those early American children!

6 We roasted wedges of pumpkin and then pureed it and made pumpkin biscuits (currently cooking and they smell good).

7 In the mean time we roasted some of the seeds

8 The rest of the seed we painted either orange or green and plan to do a 'mosaic picture' of a pumpkin with them onto semi-set plaster tomorrow. Finally this afternoon I'll use somne of the fantastic worksheets on pumpkins on www.enchantedlearning.dom to consolidate and discuss about pollination and vine growing.

Yipeeeeeeeeeee. A great day. Not bad for a bag of 49p pumpkins!

Jane

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Posted by deedeeuk

Sounds like fun! I too got a bargain on pumpkins. They were going for a penny a piece in ASDA two days after H!! I got sixteen and have cooked them up and pureed them and frozen the puree for baking with all year long! YUM!! The boys spent two afternoons cleaning pumpkin seeds to roast for snacks. They had a very messy and fun time of it! I have a couple of them left so we might try some of the other fun stuff that you did. Maybe next week as part of our thanksgiving lessons!

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Posted by jayfromcleveland

What? No punkin pie? Why that's... (well...) un-American!!!!

There's nothing in the world like the cool days of fall and the smell of a freshly-cut punkin (note the phonetic American spelling.) Never did much go for the slimy innards, but baked punkin seeds are a treat you can keep handy all winter. Just chew 'em up as-is.

We had a punkin on the porch last year for decoration, and when it collapsed, I threw it on our compost pile to rot. The vines sprouted in the spring, and Deb moved them to the garden. We ended up with four pie punkins out of the deal, and will eat the pies for Thanksgiving next week! Is that a classic homeschool activity or what?

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