Two Hoots and A Holler: All About Pumpkins and Presidents

Hoot #1

We are continuing our Fall unit through November, and we learned all about pumpkins!  We got to pick our pumpkin at the pumpkin patch, now we were ready to explore pumpkins.  The timing was awesome because it tied into our Making Meaning and math lessons!  In Making Meaning, we have been learning about sequencing and telling the order of events in which they happen.  We learned about the pumpkin life cycle by reading Pumpkin, Pumpkin, and students had the opportunity to retell the order of the life cycle to his/her partner.  We read other pumpkin stories throughout the week, and ended our week with cutting open a real pumpkin to see what it looked like on the inside.  The students completed a brace map of a pumpkin after we discussed all of the parts of a pumpkin.  This helped students with the concept of how objects can be broken down into parts, just like numbers can be broken down into parts. The students LOVED getting to grab a hand full of pulp and seeds...the girls were more interested in that than the boys were!  We also worked on our listening skills by doing a "Pinterest inspired" directed drawing together.  They turned out really good!  

 One thing we learned during our pumpkin study is that ORANGE pumpkins cannot be found ANYWHERE after Halloween!  We had to settle using a white pumpkin! It all worked out, most of the students had never seen a white pumpkin!

 Hoot #2

Our students were out Tuesday for Election Day.  So I thought I would do an impromptu lesson on the job of the President of the United States of America and explain what election means.  We read Duck for President and watched some factual videos about presidents.  Each student got to write about what they would do if they were President and complete a craft (Yes, the craft was inspired from Pinterest too!).  These turned out too cute to not hang up in the hall!

This Week's Holler...
 This week we are hollering at Julie Lee at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten.  We use a lot of her center activities from her TPT store!  They are AWESOME!  She has TONS of ideas for November on her blog.  Our favorite is that cute "Turkey Talk" activity and writing!  Go check her out!  You will be happy you did!