Discovery's Pumpkin Patch!

This week the children discovered that a pumpkin patch was growing in the Discovery Room!

First, we introduced ourselves to the pumpkin life cycle (seed → SPROUT (our Word of the Week!) → vine → flower → green pumpkin → orange pumpkin → to earth again) and how a big pumpkin  grows from just one tiny, pumpkin seed!  A huge pumpkin can contain hundreds of seeds!  We discussed that a tiny sprout is a plant just beginning to grow - and in our example, from a pumpkin seed.  We all got to open and dig into a real pumpkin and feel the pulp and seeds!  (Some of the children were more eager than others to do that!)  We used some of our five senses to smell, look at, and touch the pumpkin.  We talked about how sometimes we carve our pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns for Halloween!

 

The kids got to dig in...

 

  

  

  

 

 

We looked at all the parts of a pumpkin - the thick, orange skin; the stem (that the farmer cuts from the vine); the leaves, the whole vine, and the beautiful, curly tendrils; the ribs, the meat (the part of the fruit animals eat); the pulp; and the seeds.  

Our littlest explorers got to explore inside pretend pumpkins with pretend pulp and seeds!  They also got to look inside a real pumpkin and feel real seeds and pulp through a large, clear bag. :) 

 

   

We read a couple, great books showing us all about the life cycle of a pumpkin and how pumpkins grow.  We discussed the things a pumpkin needs to grow:  nutrient-rich soil (and how that's like us taking our vitamins and eating our vegetables), bright sunlight, water/rain, and fresh air.  I reminded the children to save a few pumpkin seeds when they carve their pumpkin this year for Halloween, and to plant those seeds next spring in early May!  It takes a pumpkin about four or five months to grow.  

Book Recommendations:

Spiders ~ Fall Fest Week

This week, the Discovery Room was draped in cobwebs and filled with awesome examples of spiders, our arachnid friends with eight legs, eight eyes, and - who can sometimes give us the willies, but actually are very important, essential creatures in our world!  -- We also had a new WORD of the WEEK!  It was SPINNERET.  Spinnerets are the little glands on spiders' abdomens that produce the silk for their webs, for wrapping their food or eggs, for dangling from their web, and other important uses.  The children each got to take home their very own little (pretend) spider with its own spinnerets!

 

We learned that one spider can eat up to 2,000 insects in one year - including pesky mosquitoes and flies! They love to lunch on ants, bees, butterflies, moths, crickets, and even frogs and birds!  Some spiders spin webs and we discussed several different kinds:  tangled, sheet, orb, and funnel.  We even found several great examples around the school! 

  

Not all spiders spin webs, so we talked about how those spiders capture their food.  One of the coolest examples was the diving bell spider that creates a home underwater!  

We read the wonderful book, The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle.

Each class got to work together to make their own web (out of yarn) - while they sat on top of our own classroom web on the floor!

  

  

  

  

  

Our centers focused on spiders and webs.  We played a game catching "insects" (cotton balls) in a large web and we made our own eight-legged, eight-eyed spiders.  We also continued exploring our Autumn centers.  Our favorite treat was a SPECIAL visitor!  (see below!)  

It was a grand time during Fall Fest!

 

 

 

 

 

We also had a SPECIAL visitor for all our classes!  Miss Marj came to the Discovery Room to sing the wonderful song:  There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly!!!  The kids LOVED it!

Book recommendations: