Pumpkin Math

I'm always amazed at the amount of math mileage there is in a pumpkin. I've already mentioned weighing it...

...measuring it...

...and counting the seeds, after rinsing them off, and laying them out to dry (except for our roasting seeds, which were rinsed, and counted wet, and then prepared for roasting).

When it comes to counting the seeds, the possibilities are, again, endless.

Encouraged by Margaret McNara's How Many Seeds In a Pumpkin (which I mentioned in our Sunday Science post), the children chose to count our seeds by arranging them into piles of ten.

This, of course, allowed the children to practice counting by 10's. But, they also counted by 2's to 10, for each pile.

They learned, it's easier to count the piles of 10, if they are arranged in straight, even rows, instead of random piles.

And, it's even easier to count them, if the piles of 10 are lined up into rows of 10, making 100 seeds in each row.

This was great for the older children, but dealing with over 1000 seeds (from two pumpkins) was overwhelming for my 4 year. So for her, I went with an idea from Dr. Jean's Pumpkin Page, for pumpkin seed counters...

...that she could put into order, and place the proper number of seeds onto.

Then, E (age 5), could turn them over, to find a corresponding addition problem, to use with the same number of seeds.

There's so much more, I hope to do with these seeds, yet. And, I haven't even touched on all the fractions, and story problems, associated with cutting, and cooking up the pumpkins. But for now, I'm off on a search for pumpkin recipes.

There's more math fun to be had though, at this week's Math Monday link-up, hosted by Joyful Learner.




It's great to be a homeschooler.