Unit Three A fall unit study Ages 4–7
Pumpkins
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In this unit we follow the circle all the way round — seed to vine to flower to fruit and back to seed. We open one up, guess how many seeds are inside, and then count them in tens until we know.
Page two
The four books
Read aloud, more than once, in no particular order. Each one is annotated — why it is here and what to watch for. If one of the four is out at the library, four is not the point.
- Pumpkin Circle — George Levenson
- The Pumpkin Book — Gail Gibbons
- Too Many Pumpkins — Linda White
- Pumpkin Jack — Will Hubbell
The books are not included and they are not for sale here. They are library books, which is the point.
Page four
The science lesson
A pumpkin is not the end of anything, it is the middle. A seed sends up a vine that can run twenty feet, bees carry pollen between the flowers, and only the pollinated ones swell into fruit. Every pumpkin on the porch is a vine’s whole plan for the future.
It opens with what the parent needs to know, written for someone who has not thought about it since school. Then a demonstration to do at the table, and one question afterward.
“How many pumpkins are inside this pumpkin?”
Ask it once. Then be quiet and let the answer come, however long it takes.
And then the rest of it.
- The poems
- Traditional harvest rhyme, said aloud once a day until it is theirs by Friday. Then “When the Frost is on the Punkin” — James Whitcomb Riley, read once on the last day and deliberately not explained.
- The activity
- Measure the pumpkin — string around its middle for a belt, then weigh it, then count the ribs going once around with a finger.
- The craft
- A seed mosaic — a shape drawn in pencil, glued a small patch at a time, seeds laid flat edge to edge.
- Math
- Counting, number bonds to ten, tally marks, which pile has more, and word problems to read aloud — all of it about pumpkins.
- The copywork page
- “A pumpkin grows on a long green vine.” on three-line ruling — two lines traced, the rest left blank.
- A devotion, five days
- 5 days, two minutes each at the table — a verse, a sentence, and one line to pray together. King James Version. John 12:24 · Mark 4:27 · Psalm 65:11 · Luke 6:38 · Psalm 145:16.
- Roasted pumpkin seeds with salt
- The seeds from the pumpkin you opened. Forty-five minutes, most of it waiting. The child’s job and the adult’s job are written out separately, so nobody has to guess who holds the knife.
- What you will need
- Four books from the library, a pumpkin, a length of string, kitchen scales, and a printer.
Take the pumpkins unit.
One purchase for the whole unit as a print-ready PDF. No account and no login — it arrives by email, and it is yours to print as often as you like for the children in your own house.
Here it is.
All five days of Apples, yours to print. A copy is on its way to your inbox as well — check the spam folder if it isn’t there in a few minutes.
Start with Monday: cut an apple across the middle instead of down through the stem, and look for the star.