2.NBT.1-4 through pumpkins

Halloween is over....I'm exhausted!  Between Halloween and a full moon - our kids were just a tad hyper crazy INSANE!  Then I got to come home and take my own children for what felt like an endless walk around my neighborhood to get candy.  I am recovering though and thought I would share the fun activities Juli and I did with our classes to keep their minds off Halloween.  We did a variety of things with pumpkins to teach a lot of Common Core objectives.  In math we focused on 2.NBT.1-4.  We used a GREAT unit from Sunny Days in Second Grade to have the students complete a Pumpkin Investigation. Once we were done predicting, measuring, and recording data, we moved onto cutting those pumpkins open.  We also used these items from Abby over at The Inspired Apple.  The kids loved everything we did! They kept saying how much fun they were having and I didn't have one child ask me about how much longer until they could go trick or treating.  I had grand visions of plotting the seeds on graphs using bar graphs and line plots, but we ran out of time. I think next year I will use smaller pumpkins. Before I show pictures of work I have to show a picture of my cute little trick or treaters:

               How cute are they?! Okay onto pictures that actually relate to this post:

   This is a picture of Juli's kiddos doing the predictions and investigations. We gave each group a pumpkin so we  each had about 4 groups per class.

Another one of Juli's crew doing the measurements. Everyone actually got along and worked together nicely - very little arguing!

Trying the pumpkins seeds - roasted and salted ones - not the ones we just dug out of the pumpkins!

      Graphing the results of the pumpkin seed tasting. Most liked them - I was surprised!

   Each child filled out one but I also made big versions for the hallway shown above.

      I also made a big version of this for the hallway but the kids each had their own to complete.

Examples of student work....they did awesome! After we did this, we sorted the seeds into groups of 10 and counted by 10s. Each group made their own pumpkins patch and then we compared the pumpkin patches.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and learning took place on Halloween - SUCCESS! If this looks like something you would be interested in doing with your class, you can follow the links above to Sunny Days in Second Grade and The Inspired Apple.

I am going to close with my new anchor chart for Subject and Predicate. I am hoping that leaving it up all year will help my class actually retain this information.