How Pumpkins Grow Lesson Plan
Teach Elementary Students About the Life Cycle of Fall Vegetables
Jul 27, 2009
Elementary kids are naturally fascinated by living things and are curious about how plants grow. The fall is the perfect time for teachers to teach students about the life cycles of fruits and vegetables such as pumpkins.
Teachers who live in areas where pumpkins naturally grow can arrange for their class to take a field trip to a pumpkin patch or they can visit one themselves and photograph the plants. For those who are not able to go on a field trip, classroom observations and experiments can provide first hand information about the life cycle of pumpkins.
How Pumpkins Grow Lesson Introduction
- Teachers can begin the pumpkin life cycle unit by bringing real pumpkins into the classroom. Teachers can decorate bulletin boards using apples and pumpkins and display apple and pumpkin themed books and games to immerse students in the fall unit.
- On the first day of the unit the teacher reads the children’s book Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell [Simon and Schuster, 1989] to the class. The kids share and discuss their prior knowledge of and previous experiences with pumpkin patches.
Life Cycle of Pumpkins Science Unit Plan
- The teacher asks the students if they have ever seen pumpkins seeds. The class cuts open a pumpkin to examine the seeds inside. The students draw a picture of the seeds and write descriptions of each seed in their science journals.
- The teacher explains that each seed can start a new pumpkin plant when properly planted. The students discuss what factors plants need to grow. A student volunteer from the class draws a picture of a pumpkin seed for a Pumpkin Life Cycle Bulletin Board. The teacher places the seed drawing and a label on the bulletin board.
- The class plants the pumpkin seeds and records the growth of the plants in their science journals. When the plants emerge a student volunteer draws the pumpkin plant and adds the drawing and label to the Pumpkin Life Cycle Bulletin Board.
- If time is an issue the teacher can then bring in a previously planted pumpkin plant so the students can see how the plant flowers before it bears fruit or the students can view pictures of a pumpkin plant online or in a book. This stage of the life cycle is drawn and added to the bulletin board.
- Students continue to observe and record their plants transplanting them into the ground when necessary. When the pumpkin begins to grow a drawing of the pumpkin is added to the Pumpkin Lie Cycle Bulletin Board.
- The final stage of the pumpkin life cycle is when the fruit decays and the seeds return to the earth to sprout new plants. The kids place a pumpkin outside the classroom to rot and observe the changes that take place as it decays. This stage is drawn and added to the Pumpkin Life Cycle Bulletin Board.
- When the pumpkin has decayed the students observe how the seeds sink back into the ground from the mush to complete the life cycle. The students demonstrate their knowledge of the pumpkin life cycle by creating how pumpkins grow pamphlets using their notebooks and the Pumpkin Life Cycle Bulletin Board.
Elementary students can learn how pumpkins grow by planting and observing the growth of pumpkin seeds. Kids can watch the plants go through the stages of the life cycle of a pumpkin and record the information on a classroom Pumpkin Life Cycle Bulletin Board. At the end of the unit the students demonstrate their knowledge of how plants grow by creating informative pamphlets.
Teachers can use the articles Fall Leaf, Apple, and Pumpkin Writing Prompts, Pumpkin Pie Math and Science Cooking Lesson Plan, and Teach Elementary Students About Rhyming Couplets to create a comprehensive pumpkin themed unit.
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