Pumpkin Predictions
Hi friends!
Have you seen the Pinterest project where you grow pumpkin plants inside a pumpkin shell? I thought it looked like fun, but some of the teachers at my school said the pumpkin would rot before the seeds could grow.
Hmm…that made the science teacher in me very curious. And I wanted to share my curiosity with my students. So I created a library center!
Here’s what it looked like.
I cut the top from a pumpkin, scooped out most of the inside, filled the hollow part with potting soil and a few pumpkin seeds near the top of the soil. I watered it. I put plant books out on the table, with markers and a prompt on the butcher paper.
The prompt says, “I predict the pumpkin will sprout first because…” on one side, and “I predict the pumpkin will rot first because…” on the other side. We are working on sentence stems with our students, and this is one of the stems to provide evidence for a prediction. I drew bubbles for the student responses.
And here are a few of the responses I got.
The responses were about even, between rotting and sprouting. Spoiler alert…here’s a picture of our results!
Hooray! They sprouted! That was so much fun, sharing the experiment with our students! I’ve ordered this book, and it would be perfect to read with this library center.
Pumpkin Jack tells the story of a jack o’lantern put out in the garden after Halloween. Guess what happens over the course of the year? Rotting, then sprouting!
Gotta love a little pumpkin science! Tell me, what does YOUR library grow?
I love this idea! And I have a copy of Pumpkin Jack ready to go in my library. I also like the idea of adding circles to the butcher paper for student comments.
Do you have a Pumpkin Prediction Center sign to go with this? I would love to have it if you do. Thank you!