This was the best week ever! We had so much fun doing all of our fall inquiry centers and ended the week with pumpkin day on Friday! My friends are getting so good at working independently at centers and we were able to do so many fun things during our 25 minute inquiry block at the end of the day. Here is what we were up to this week!
Observation Center:
I grabbed a bag of fancy gourds from target and a few magnifying glasses from the dollar tree to create a fall observation center. We talked about what it is like to draw an observational picture and I put a poster of what an observational picture of a gourd looked like at the center. My friends did this center totally independently and had so much fun! I was really impressed with how hard they worked and they were so proud of their drawings!
Fall Tree Q-Tip Painting
At this center, we used fall colors and q-tips to paint our very own fall trees. You know when you have a really specific idea in your head of what the outcome of a painting will be? Never happens in kindergarten. But that is OK. There fall paintings came out beautiful and they were so creative! I love how hard they worked and how responsible they were with the paint. A project that could have turned messy never did and I was so proud!
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| I love the leaves falling off of her tree! |
Pumpkin STEM Challenge
The week before we started these centers I was all over pinterest searching for a STEM pumpkin challenge. I saw really cute pumpkin stands made of straw and held together with masking tape. Problem was-- I really needed this to be independent and my friends are still having a tough time ripping masking tape. SO we improvised and instead the challenge was-- make a pumpkin stand out of blocks! This was extremely low prep and my little engineers were all engaged and working on problem solving skills.
Pumpkin Day
On Thursday we had told the kids that we would have a very special surprise for them the next day. They went home SO excited and wondering about all of the possibilities. All of our kindergarten friends listened to a story and when it was over, we had a pumpkin patch set up outside! Everyone had their name written on the top of their pumpkins to extend the search. Afterwards, we came inside to paint!
Pumpkin Math and Science
After lunch, we had extra pumpkins set up to do pumpkin math and science activities. Students visited three centers: pumpkin exploration (parts of a pumpkin), sink or float, and pumpkin measurement.
Our school custodian was kind enough to cut our big pumpkin open for us. I had it cut right down the side so that they could see what a pumpkin looked like from this angle. I figured that they had seen pumpkins with a top cut off before, so I wanted to do it a little differently. I also put some pumpkin seeds and pulp under our amazing view scope from oriental trading. We are going to be using this so much and it was totally worth getting! You can grab it HERE. You can also head over to Oriental Trading's Learn 365 to find SO MUCH MORE awesome stuff!
The kids were AMAZED at what the inside of our pumpkin looked like! We even got to feel inside and used our senses to describe the pumpkin.
We did some measurement with a pumpkin too! We measured the circumference with linking chains, height with snap cubes, and weighed it against some rocks. The kids filled out a responding sheet at this center.
We also did our "sink or float" activity and talked about why pumpkins float!
Happy fall!
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