On Thursday, 9 yo daughter and I went to a pumpkin patch with the local homeschool group.  We got to walk around the patch and pick our two favorite pumpkins to bring home; we watched a pumpkin shoot out of a cannon (twice!); and we explored a fire truck.  It was a fun hour and we were glad we went.  We brought our pumpkins home, put them on display in the living room and enjoyed looking at them.

Later that afternoon, I picked up the city newspaper and saw a group of elementary children from a local public school who had been at the same pumpkin patch earlier this week.  Underneath the picture of the kids in the newspaper, I read "P. Elementary students search the V. pumpkin patch Tuesday morning...The pumpkins were taken back to school where the students tested to see if they would sink or float, counted the ribs, measured the circumference and estimated and counted the seeds." 

Oh my.  So that's what I missed by not going to *teacher school*.  It never even occurred to me to use our new pumpkins as a learning opportunity.  What kind of homeschooling mother am I? 

My daughter saw the article, too, and sighed.  She remarked that if there is one drawback to being homeschooled, it's that public school kids get to do more fun experiments than we do.  Then I sighed.  I decided it was time to grab those pumpkins and get some learning done!  We played Will It Float in the kitchen sink and learned all about circumference with a tape measure, as well as a string and ruler.  We didn't count the ribs, though (*yawn* - she's 9 - boring!), nor did we estimate or count any seeds as we're not ready just yet to cut into them.  (Remember I wanted to simply enjoy looking at them for a while.)

So now we have officially *learned something* with our pumpkins just like the school kids down the road.  I feel so much better now.