Apple and Pumpkin Venn Diagram

The children shared what they learned during our study of apples and pumpkins. We talked about things that were the same for both apples and pumpkins and things that were specific to just an apple or a pumpkin. We represented it on a Venn Diagram. Here is what they said.

Apple Prints

After tasting the apples, we used the other half to paint with. I cut the apples in half in two different directions so that the star seed pod showed on some but not all. It was interesting to note that the children wanted to paint first with their favorite flavor of apple and then with the other colors.

Apple Tasting

Today, we tasted four different varieties of apples. The children compared all of the flavors and picked their favorite. Here is how they voted. We then spent some time studying the graph to see what they noticed. Which one got the most votes? Which ones got the least number of votes? Were any equal? We represented each number with the numeral, a common dot pattern, and tally marks. The children noticed that three of the columns were equal. I showed them what that looked like symbolically. We then tied the apple tasting activity to our study of the five senses. The children used all five of their senses when interacting with the apples. They used their sense of sight to differentiate the color of the apples. They used their sense of taste to compare the flavors. They used their sense of hearing to listen to the apple crunch as they bit into it. They used their sense of smell when they noticed the sweet aroma the apples had. They used their sense of touch when they held the apple and noticed it was cold and smooth. There was so much learning and the kids thought they just got to taste apples!

Final Pumpkin Web

 Today we wrapped up our study of pumpkins. I asked the children what they knew about pumpkins and recorded what they said on a pumpkin web. I compared the answers they gave today to the answers they gave me two weeks ago when we started our study. There has been so much growth! I noticed a lot of pumpkin vocabulary and facts woven into their answers. Well done preschool scientists!!

                                    This is what I recorded on the first day of our pumpkin study.

                                            These were their answers today!

Puffy Paint Pumpkins

The children painted using puffy paint and added faces to their art work. We used the opportunity to discuss the sound that /p/ makes and to discuss different emotion states and what your face looks like when you feel that way.

Fall STEM activities

 Preschool activities are rich in math and science opportunities. Children learn best through play. This week, they dissected a pumpkin, practiced balancing gourds on the balance scale, explored the principals of sink and float in the water table, mixed two colors (red and yellow) to create a third color (orange), measured pumpkins, and learned about the life cycle and parts of a pumpkin. Vocabulary I introduced included: height, circumference, tall/taller/tallest, big/bigger/biggest, small/medium/large, balance, sink, float, parts of a pumpkin: seeds, pulp, ribs, flesh, skin, and the life cycle of a pumpkin: seed, sprout, vine, flower, pollination, green pumpkin, orange pumpkin, seed.