We are Pumpkin Detectives

Today my students became Pumpkin Detectives.  I enlisted some parent volunteers to help with our pumpkin rotations. 

I split the students into 4 groups. Two of the groups became Pumpkin Detectives.

 We weighed our pumpkins, measured the circumference, measured how tall our pumpkins were with cubes, and predicted the number of seeds.  

We kept track of our information and the students wrote down their findings on their own recording sheets.

The students came up with words to describe the outside of their pumpkins.  Then, it was time to cut the pumpkins open.  The students felt the insides and came up with adjectives to describe the inside of the pumpkin.
Finally, we began counting the seeds.

*I HIGHLY recommend laying down cheap plastic table cloths over your desks or tables and do everything right on top.  Clean up was SUPER easy!  We just rolled it all up and threw it away.
I found that the best way to do this was to scoop some out for each student and have them start putting the seeds into groups of 10.  The group I was working with had 663 seeds!!!

The other two groups rotated between making a Pumpkin Book and completing a pumpkin craft.  Then, we switched and the other two groups were able to become Pumpkin Detectives.

The students had a lot of fun and even though it still smells like pumpkins in my classroom, it was well worth it.
You can download the Pumpkin Detective recording sheet for FREE by clicking on the picture below.

Hopefully, I get a chance tomorrow evening to blog about my new Fluency Fun for Everyone packet.  I am LOVING this differentiated fluency packet and have been using it in small groups!  You can click on the picture below to head on over to my TpT store to check it out.