Pumpkin Mania

This week, in honor of Halloween, our studies focused around pumpkins.  It was kind of an easy week for us which was nice after the last couple of not-so-great weeks.  There were no spelling words, and I have cancelled the reading lessons for the time being until I get something that works better for us.  We still have the Reading Eggs program that Hayden appears to really enjoy.  There is a lot of review for him, and it seems to be a bit redundant for me (much more so than the 100 Lessons book we were using before), but the constant repeating of the same sounds in one lesson for him with this program doesn't bother him at all.  With the book, he would whine and complain every time I had him repeat the same word or sound over just once or twice.  The last time he got on the Reading Eggs program, he spent an hour on it (joyfully, I might add).  12 minutes with the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was pure torture for him.  So, I guess this is better?

In addition to the Reading Eggs program, we also worked together as a team to write a Halloween story.  Sawyer also helped out with this.  Tomorrow (Halloween Day) we will put the story together in the form of a book with illustrations, title page, cover, etc.

Books we read this week were all about Halloween and pumpkins.  They are listed in the Books We Read post for October.

Probably the most enjoyable thing we did this week was the Five Little Pumpkins Felt Storyboard.  The boys absolutely loved it, and I videotaped them doing it themselves.  If I ever figure out how to connect the video camera properly to the computer to get just a certain segment, I will do it.  If you don't know the poem, it goes:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh my! It's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "But we don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

Whoo-ooh! went the wind,

and out went the lights,

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Of course, my children like to ad lib to make the ending unique, and they are very fond of saying, "and the witches went dead." instead of the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.  Gotta love boys, right?

Our math and science went hand in hand this week.  We used pumpkins to measure, weigh, estimate, and count.  We recorded our estimations vs. actual measurements, and we performed a pumpkin floating experiment.   The boys compared pumpkins with other fruits and vegetables by guessing which ones would float vs. which ones wouldn't.  They played with that activity for ever.

Measuring the pumpkins



End results posted on board after weighing, measuring,
and estimating our seeds.

Floating pumpkin experiment

Recording results of floating vs. nonfloating foods

Everything but the carrot floats!

Time to count the seeds!
(Guess who wouldn't put their hands in
the pumpkin?)

In addition to these activities, we also had a Halloween party with our homeschool group.  The boys got to dress up and enjoyed playing with some of the other homeschoolers their age and older.

We also took a field trip to Vicar's Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach which is an assisted living facility.  We went with some friends (this was our third year doing this), and all the children dressed up in their costumes while the sweet little old ladies oohed and aahed over them and gave out candy.  It was very enjoyable for everyone, and it's nice to know that you can start working with your children at such an early age on the importance of being kind to others and giving them a sense of community, etc.

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