From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

The Spooky Pumpkin! 

Welcome to our Pumpkin Patch!

If you are thinking about what units to teach in the fall, consider teaching one on pumpkins! The students LOVE learning about pumpkins and there are so many fun and engaging activities and skills you can pull in to this unit. I've written a thematic unit on pumpkins that includes: reading, writing, poetry, math and science activities with craftivities, interactive notebooks, vocabulary cards and an October Home Project. 

Unit Cover Page

My favorite part about this thematic unit is our first grade Pumpkin Patch. Every year, our students think about a book to read at home and write a book report about it. Then, they decide which character from the story they want to dress up as on Halloween. They decorate a pumpkin to look like their character and bring it to school with their book report. We decorate our hallways to look like a pumpkin patch and line up the pumpkins in the hallway with their books. On Halloween the students dress up as their character and we do a character parade around the school. Even the teachers dress up too! It is so fun and it's a sneaky way for us to dress up for Halloween too!  In this unit, I've written directions, a parent letter and a book report for the students to complete at home.

Pumpkin Patch Templates and Directions

It is so fun to see how the students will decorate their pumpkins! This is usually my favorite part of October.

Also included in this unit are lesson plans...of course! I've written 15 days of lesson plans with mentor texts, materials, directions and examples.

Unit Lesson Plans

I've included vocabulary cards that show the life cycle of a pumpkin, parts of a pumpkin and the scientific method.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin
These are excellent visuals for the students to have on display in the classroom for a future resource! I like to have a pocket chart next to my author's chair and I keep these cards there for my lesson and future reference.

A unit isn't complete unless we have craftivities! I LOVE to incorporate as much art and writing as I can in my units. Each craftivity comes with materials, directions and examples.
One craftivity is making a life cycle of a pumpkin and writing a procedural text to go with it.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Another crafivitiy is making Spookley the Square Pumpkin out of a cube pattern and decorating him with tendrils and googly eyes. The students can retell the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Isn't he cute?
It's hard to tell, but he is 3-D.... honest!

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

The next craftivity is for the students to write a spooky pumpkin story by brainstorming adjectives and story elements. Then, they can make their spooky pumpkin. I LOVE this one especially his crazy eyes and teeth!

The Spooky Pumpkin!

Also included in this unit are math, reading, poetry and science interactive notebooks.

Reading and Poetry Interactive Notebooks

Math Interactive Notebooks 

Science Interactive Notebook

There are also math workstation games, such as BUMP. I've written directions and have two different game mats that you can use: one in color and one in black and white. I laminate them so I can reuse them every year.  The students LOVE this game and want to play it all the time!

BUMP Game for Math Workstations

At the end of this unit, after you carve your Jack-O-Lantern, there is a Rotting Pumpkin Investigation. I know this probably sounds gross, but your students will LOVE it! All you need to do, is cut up pieces of your Jack-O-Lantern and place them in three different jars. One jar will have soil, the other one will have sand and the last one nothing, just air. The students will get to investigate to see which pumpkin in which jar will rot the fastest, the most, and the slowest. I've written an investigation log for your students to use. It includes a cover page, 8 days of investigating and a problem solving page at the end. Have fun with this one!

Our Rotting Pumpkin Investigation Log

I hope you got some great ideas about incorporating pumpkins into your science curriculum for October! It is so spooky and fun and the students just LOVE learning about them! If you are interested in checking out my thematic unit, click below.

From Seed to Pumpkin: A Thematic Unit 

Love, Kara

Graphics Courtesy of:

                                                     Thermal Energy with S'Mores

Have you ever wanted to make S'Mores with your class, but didn't know where to start? Well... this post is for you! Your students will LOVE making S'Mores and this is something they will always remember! Here are the supplies and ingredients you will need to start: 

Graham Crackers

Large S'Mores Marshmallows

Hershey Bars

Small Box with an open top

Aluminum Foil

                                     Black Construction Paper

                                               Siran Wrap

                                                    Tape 

You will also need to read this book: 123 Make a S'More with Me. This is a great opening "hook" to your lesson: 

Here is a YouTube video of how to make your solar oven. I show this video to my class and then we make them together. Click here

I spent one day with my class making the ovens and S'Mores during science time. We spent the next day putting the ovens outside in the sun and then a couple of hours later we went back outside to see how thermal energy changes melts the chocolate and we ate them! It was so much fun! 

The following week, we wrote a Procedural Writing story about how we made our S'Mores. We used these cards on our pocket chart: 

Now that the students had made their S'Mores the week before helped them remember the steps. 

We wrote a story on our procedural writing template. This resource has different ones you can choose from that best meets the needs of your class: 

We colored a S'Mores topper and glued it to the top of our writing.

They look SUPER CUTE in your hallway! We got a lot of compliments from teachers and parents about them.

In math, we used the S'Mores fire mat and practiced making addition and subtraction sentences using real marshmallows. So fun! 

If you would like to see the resource click here

This is a great way to wrap up your Thermal Energy unit! I hope you have fun making your Solar Ovens and S'Mores with your class!

What a fun and exciting way to end your week!

Love, Kara 

                                          Community Helpers Thematic Unit

If you love teaching thematic units and want to include a community helpers unit in your classroom, then read on! Above you can see my theme center with a poster of community helpers, and activities, puzzles, hats, and books for the students to read. 

Here are some great mentor texts that you can read for Community Helpers! 

Here are some anchor charts with interactive notebooks that I use in my unit: What is a Community, Community Helpers and What is a Good Citizen? I love making my anchor charts interactive with post it notes! 

Here are some craftivities that I do for Career Day. Each student gets to write about what they want to be when they grow up and make a craftivity to hang in the hallway. They are super cute! 

Click here to see my Career Day writing craftivities.

Here is a craftivity for Officer Buckle and Gloria. Click here to see the resource. 

Here is a craftivity for Roxaboxen. Click here to see the resource. 

At the end of your thematic unit, you can have your students create a town or village that resembles Roxaboxen. You can use paper box lids and have your students bring in all kinds of recycled items for them to create their own town. Here are some items that I had my students bring in: paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, sticks, pebbles, egg cartons, feathers, pipe cleaners, construction paper. Here are some examples of my villages that we made: 

They turned out so cute and the students really LOVED making them! Click here to see my thematic unit on Community Helpers. It includes lesson plans with suggested mentor texts, anchor charts, interactive notebooks, writing craftivities and end of unit project! 

Hope you enjoy it!

Love, Kara 

Apple Investigations and Craftivities for Your Classroom

  

Have you been thinking of what units you'll be teaching in the fall for science? You might want to consider teaching a thematic unit about apples! Under this umbrella unit, you can pull in TONS of skills: properties of apples, life cycle of apples, parts of an apple, the seasons of the apple tree, making 10 frames with apples, friends of ten with apples, apple BUMP games, graphing varieties of apples, making applesauce with procedural text,  Tall Tales with Johnny Appleseed, poetry with apples and expository writing about apples. 

See... it's endless about what skills and concepts you can pull together and make it fun and engaging for the students! And, the best part about this thematic unit... is the apple tasting! Having 

an apple investigation using your 5 senses is so fun! Have different stations set up so your students can investigate! Click here to check out this resource! 

 You can devote one day to bring in varieties of apples and have the students taste them, vote on their favorite one, graph them, and make applesauce with them!  Here is a recipe that you can try with your students in the crockpot!

Applesauce Recipe

After you make applesauce with your class, you can also have the students write about it using a procedural text!

Procedural Writing Templates
Click  here  to check out this resource! 

For this thematic unit, I've written 12 days of lesson plans with mentor texts, materials, directions, and examples. They are easy to follow and are user friendly.

Apple Lesson Plans

To help with the lesson plans, I've put together apple vocabulary cards to show the students. You can display these in your classroom on your anchor chart or pocket chart for an excellent resource for the students to use!

Apple Vocabulary Cards

  Johnny Appleseed is another fun story to read. Your students can write a biography about him with a craftivity! Click here 

For interactive notebooks, the students can illustrate using their 5 senses for each season, label the parts of the apple, illustrate the life cycle and many more...

For math, I've put together many different math games and templates. There is an apple BUMP game, making friends of 10, problem solving, and graphing. Click here to see the math mats! 

Click  here for BUMP games! 

There are two focus poems that I've included in this unit. The students can cut them out and glue them into their poetry notebook and illustrate a picture. Under the picture I always have them write a caption... "I drew, or I illustrated." This helps the students understand what captions are and how they work. 

Here are some cute craftivities that you can do with your class!
Seasons of the Apple Tree click here
 

Apple Investigation using Properties and Measurement
click here

Last, but not least, I want to share with you my apple theme center. This is where I put apple games, baskets of apples, books, posters, and hands on activities about apples for the students to use. The theme center is always a class favorite. My students get so excited when they come Monday morning and see a new theme center... they know they are learning something new!

Apple Theme Center

I hope you got some great ideas about how to incorporate apples into your curriculum for the fall! If you are interested in checking out my Apple Thematic Unit, click below.

Apples Are A "Peeling": A Thematic Unit

Love, Kara