Pumpkin Art

Fourth Grade Pumpkins

Fourth Graders worked on drawing overlapping pumpkins. They added a horizon line to separate the land and sky. They added details to show implied wind and texture on the grass. They traced their drawings with colored permanent markers and then water colored them.

Place Value Pumpkin Patch

The students created Place Value Pumpkin Patches to help them count larger numbers by tens and ones. They first built various numbers using candy pumpkins. They then took a gallery walk to count one anothers' pumpkins. They then recreated the pumpkin patch number on paper ten rods by painting with their thumbprint. The students then wrote how many rows of ten and how many ones were in their pumpkin patch and how much those numbers were worth in expanded notation. Fellow teachers, you can download the templates for FREE on my TPT store.

Pumpkin Writing

Using our writing program, Write From the Beginning, the students wrote to describe pumpkins. They first created a Circle Map followed by a Tree Map to describe what a pumpkin has, looks like, and what it can do. Each Thursday we have Guided Writing instead of Guided Reading. The students work on their writing Monday through Wednesday and on Thursday they bring it to me for editing. I work with the students to edit their work by asking them questions such as "What goes at the beginning of a sentence?" or "What goes at the end of a complete sentence?" We also discuss strategies of sounding out words to spell unknown words. After we edit together, the students rewrite their sentences for a final draft. The students wrote their final draft this time on pumpkin paper and colored it.

PTA Pumpkin Decorating Contest Winner

Look who won first place for first grade in PTA's pumpkin decorating contest! We are so proud of you!

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever

Last week we were working extensively on making connections. After reading The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll, the students wrote and illustrated at least one text-to-self connection they made.

Pumpkin Patch Place Value

Over the last several weeks we have been learning about place value. To practice identifying and counting tens and ones, we created pumpkin patches. Each student was given a bag of candy pumpkins. Each bag had a different number of pumpkins it in ranging from 20 to 50. The students placed the pumpkins on a ten rod mat starting at the top. As they placed the pumpkins, we discussed how there was not a need to count the pumpkins one-by-one because once a row was complete, we could count them by ten. A row that was not full had to be counted by ones. After building their numbers, we took a gallery walk to each table to count the various numbers of pumpkins. At each table the students discussed which number was the greatest and which was the least. We talked about first looking at the tens place and then at the ones place, if they tens were equal. The next day, the students chose a new bag and repeated the activity. This time instead of counting the numbers aloud, they drew sticks and dots to represent the nubmer. They wrote how many tens and ones were in their pumpkin patch and its expanded notation. Because we were having so much fun, we decided to extend the lesson to another day. The students chose another bag and built their number. This time, they used paint to create thumbprint pumpkins on a paper version of the ten rod mat to match their candy pumpkin representation. They students then wrote how many tens and ones were in their pumpkin patch and how much it was worth in expanded notation. Teachers, you may download the templates for the Pumpkin Patch Recording Sheet and the Pumpkin Patch Place Value Mat at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for FREE! Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Writing

Through our writing program, Write From the Beginning, the students are learning to write descriptively. This week the students wrote about a pumpkin. They wrote about what a pumpkin looks like, what it has, and what it can do. They used a Circle Map to brainstorm and then organized their thoughts on a Tree Map. After using the Tree Map to help them write sentences, we worked together to edit and revise the sentences. The students then wrote a final draft of their writing on pumpkin writing paper and colored it.

Pumpkin Writing

Each week we write using a program called Write From the Beginning. The program uses Thinking Maps to teach the students how to organize their thoughts and sentences. This week we wrote about real pumpkins. The students created a Circle Map followed by a Tree Map to write three sentences describe a pumpkin. After writing their sentences the students received one-on-one feedback on how to edit and improve their writing. They wrote their final drafts on pumpkin paper to add to our hallway pumpkin patch.

Pumpkin Shapes

The students created abstract pumpkins out of squares and triangles during our study of two-dimensional shapes. The goal was to see different ways squares and square rectangles could be made using smaller squares. It was a good way for the students to see that no matter the shape of the square or square rectangle, its attributes stayed the same - it had four vertices (corners) and four sides. The students were challenged to make pumpkin leaves by creating large triangles out of smaller triangles. They had to focus on turning the small triangles to make a pattern. Enjoy a quick slideshow below of their work:

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Pumpkin Patch Counting

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