Fall is a wonderful season that lends so many possibilities to incorporate seasonal items into our classrooms. Fall is also pumpkin season and a pumpkin investigation is a great way for students to get hands-on and practicing science and math skills.

I plan a whole “Pumpkin Day” for our investigation but you could also spread it out over several days. Each student is encouraged to bring in their own pumpkin to use. I send a note home to families requesting pumpkins. I also seek out pumpkin donations from local pumpkin vendors.

Math Tasks:

• Students estimate and measure the weight and volume of a pumpkin.

• Students estimate and measure the height of a pumpkin. 

• We work together to create a bar graph of where the class pumpkins were purchased.

• Students estimate and count the number of seeds in our pumpkins. I teach them how to sort the seeds into groups of ten to count them more easily and accurately.

• We work together as a class to create a graph of pumpkin prices.

Science Tasks:

• We review the stages of a pumpkin life cycle and students cut and glue the stages of the life cycle in order. 

• Students observe our class set of pumpkins and classify them and sort them by different properties, such as color, shape, or size.

• Students observe and record the properties of the outside of their pumpkin. After the pumpkins are cut open, they observe and record the properties of the inside of their pumpkin.

• As a class, we share and compare our classifications and properties of pumpkins.