Firstieland - First Grade Teacher Blog

Where learning feels like play.

Best Pumpkin Activities For Elementary Students In First Grade

Pumpkin Activities For Kids

It's finally beginning to feel like fall around here!  The air is crisp and the leaves are changing colors.  It's my favorite time of the year! So, of course, it's time to break out the Halloween lesson plans and pumpkin activities!

We spent last week learning all about pumpkins – how they grow, describing them, and what you can make out of them.  My firsties loved it! Take a look at some of the things we did.

Life Cycle Of A Pumpkin

We started out the week with one of my favorite books for the season, Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington. The illustrations in this book are beautiful.  The author uses lovely watercolor drawings to show the life cycle of a pumpkin.
 
 
 
When were finished with the story, we worked together to complete this anchor chart where we labeled the parts of the pumpkin. 
 
 
 
Next, I introduced procedural writing to the students as we worked together to write the life cycle of a pumpkin. The students helped me compose the piece and I wrote the words.
 
    
 
The students made their own life cycle of the pumpkin using the words seed, flower, small green pumpkin, and big orange pumpkin. We glued a real pumpkin seed on first and used a small piece of yellow tissue paper for the flower. I gave the students a small bit of paint to make the green and orange pumpkins. When they were finished they completed the life cycle of a pumpkin worksheet. 
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
 

Describing Pumpkins With Adjectives

Next, we read The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons.  If you've never used any of Gail Gibbons's books in class, check them out! They're really great informational texts for younger kids.
 
 
 
 
 
I brought in some real pumpkins for the students to pass around and look at.  I had lots of different shapes, sizes, and colors which was a great lesson on adjectives.  We made this chart and listed lots of different words to describe pumpkins.
 
 
 
I also found this cute poem that we sang.  I put the poem at our Big Book Station after we did it as a whole group, for my firsties to practice on their own.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
The students each make a large pumpkin craft and then wrote adjectives to describe their pumpkin.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
 

Pumpkin Tasting

Our pumpkin activities wouldn't be complete without tasting some of the wonderful food made from this fruit. We tasted pumpkin bread, pie, and pumpkin seeds and then worked together to make this class graph. 

Pumpkin Investigations

We integrated our science lessons into our pumpkin unit with a day of investigations. The students visited 5 different stations to learn about the following. They completed a page in their Pumpkin Investigations notebook at each station. 

  • Station 1 – How tall is a pumpkin?
  • Station 2 – What is the circumference of our pumpkin?
  • Station 3 – Which is heavier a pumpkin or an apple?
  • Station 4 – Will a pumpkin sink or float?
  • Station 5 – How many seeds are in our pumpkin?

Pumpkin Writing Activities

We finished up our week with some informational writing on what we have learned. This is a new skill for my students, so I modeled how to write a report on the board.  I showed them how to make a graphic organizer to gather their information.  Then I showed them how to write a report using an opening, a few facts, and a closing sentence.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
Next, it was time for the students to do their own informational writing. They made a graphic organizer web and then used the information to help them write their reports.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
 
These pumpkin activities are perfect for kindergarten or first grade kids and includes the life cycle of a pumpkin, crafts, anchor charts and more.
 
Are you ready to learn about pumpkins with your students?  This pumpkin unit has everything you need! Head over here to take a closer look at everything included. 
 
 

Save these tips for later!

Take a minute to save these tips to your favorite October Pinterest board so you can remember them later!

 

Please follow and like us:
fb-share-icon

This site contains affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something using this link we will receive a very small portion of the sale. The price of the item purchased remains the same whether you use an affiliate link or not. We will only recommend products and resources that we believe will be of value to our customers. By using our affiliate link you are helping to support this website and we genuinely appreciate your support!

Comments

Instagramland

Facebookland

Firstieland

Pinterestland
All search results
error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)