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Friday, November 8, 2013

Growing Vines and Having Good Times: A Freebie

My teaching buddy loves growing pumpkin vines and did this right after Halloween when pumpkins were easy to find. She scooped out all the gooey stuff while the kids watched and helped and left all the pumpkin seeds in the bottom. Then she added soil. After a few days of sunshine and water this pumpkin sprouted and the children exploded with enthusiasm. This is so easy and your students will love this simple science. I swear it grows bigger each day and the children look forward to coming to school to watch their pumpkin grow! I hope you try this with your class. It is the perfect activity to use with the sequencing cards I provide as a freebie in the previous post. Grab them if you haven't had a chance.
We always continue to talk about pumpkins through the month of November since young children love measuring them, predicting if they will sink or float, etc. Don't forget to do a guided drawing of the life cycle if your students are ready for this. If not, just teach them how to draw a pumpkin. 

Kindergarten students are learning many sight words that are needed for them to build fluency with their guided readers but many continue to need additional practice learning those crucial works. This is one of my favorite games and it takes no time to put it together. I hide a slice of pumpkin pie behind a word and the game is over when the winner can read the word, removes the card and finds this card! I have a little chant that the children do before a child picks a card! Most children figure out that I place the special card behind a more challenging word and it motivates them to learn these quickly. I have been playing this game for years and it is a classroom favorite. If you want to have a copy you can find it here. If you take a copy please leave a comment telling me a favorite fall game you like to play with your class. We all love getting new ideas!

8 comments:

krazy4K said...

I love this idea for pumpkin vines!!! We are watching our jack o lantern decompose so we will also watch our vines grow!!!! Thanks for idea and pumpkin sight word cards!!!

absees123s said...

Thank you so much!! Love both of these ideas!

kinder-gardening said...

I love the game and need to do the vine activity with my littles. Thank you so much!

kinder-gardening said...

I love the game and need to do the vine activity with my littles. Thank you so much!

Sue said...

I am curious if they plant the pumpkins later outside at some point?

Valentina Stier said...

We did this! Only we didnt remove the inside, we just poured potting soil in the pumpkin. The seeds sprouted and it looked great! Warning- the pumpkin decomposes so you'll need a garden area. We have a kindy garden area so it worked out great for us!

Fran Kramer said...

Once the pumpkin begins to decompose I put into a giant pot or right into the ground! The kids love this project and find the whole thing amazing to watch. By the way, I love watching it just as much!

Kinderaffe said...

Love the Pumpkin game. Can't wait to play it.

Thank you!

Sara