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Fun Facts
HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING THESE THINGS?

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts, and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden....and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

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Teacher Feature...

Pumpkin Math and Writing Activities
by Michele Nash, Gr. 2

We do an activity called Pumpkin Math! Our PTO donates 5 pumpkins to our classroom. We also recruit 4 or 5 parent volunteers to facilitate groups of students.

Each parent has a group of 4 students and 1 pumpkin. The groups do the following.

  1. Estimate if the pumpkin in their group is the largest, smallest or the in-between size of all of the pumpkins in the room.
  2. Estimate the weight of your pumpkin.
  3. Estimate the number of seeds in your pumpkin.
  4. Do a group writing activity that begins with MY pumpkin looks like_____________________
  5. Tell how you would measure around the pumpkin. What materials/tools would you use?

After this is done...they then

  1. Measure height, distance around, distance across the WIDEST SEAM of the pumpkin, length of stem. (measure in inches and centimeters...compare)
  2. Weigh the pumpkin
  3. Cut hole in the top of pumpkin, scoop out the pulp and seeds. WEIGH THE PULP AND THE SEEDS WEIGH THE EMPTY PUMPKIN
  4. Measure the thickness of the pumpkin meat
  5. Estimate the number of seeds after you scoop them out.
  6. Count the exact number of seeds. (groups of ten)
  7. Compare estimates to actual measures/counts
  8. Write a thank you note for the pumpkins to the PTO
  9. Write a thank you note to the pumpkin

This whole process takes about 1 hour give or take 15-20 minutes, depending on the groups.

The parents are completely in charge. I just go around and answer procedure questions when needed.

One another day I may have my students graph their data etc.

ANOTHER THING WE DO...

We do a Pumpkin Head writing activity.

The kids have to design a pumpkin to look like their face. They attach freckles, yarn hair, glasses, draw on or glue eyes etc. They really do turn out rather cute!

The thing to remember is to NOT to put a hole in it or it will rot very quickly. Everything should be glued or drawn on.

The kids then do a writing activity telling how their head was turned into a PUMPKIN HEAD. I have the kids hold the pumpkin head in front of their own face, and I then take a picture of them. It really does look like they have a pumpkin for a head.

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