Pumpkin Seed Project 2008

We participated in an online project this week. We had to get a pumpkin between 1-5 pounds, estimate and count the seeds. Classrooms from around the world participated in this project and posted their results. Our pumpkin weighed 4.5 pounds and we counted 376 seeds. We put the seeds into groups of ten to count them. Our estimations ranged from 1-275 seeds. As an extension in our classroom, we carved an 11 pound pumpkin, counted the seeds and compared the results. The bigger pumpkin had 578 seeds and our estimates ranged from 100-1,000,000. Before we counted the seeds, we made a graph to see how many students thought pumpkin 1 or pumpkin 2 had the most seeds. Most students thought the bigger pumpkin would have more seeds and they were right. Mrs. Keyser carved the pumpkins and we had a drawing for the pumpkins at our party. Ron Lee and Molly won the pumpkins.
We also read Pumpkin, Pumpkin and did other related lessons. We made a bubble map to describe the pumpkin and made a double bubble map to compare the pumpkin and an apple. We read the Five pumpkin poem and each student illustrated the poem. We read how a pumpkin grows in the book and each student made a flow map to show how a pumpkin grows. We also used the recipe in the book to make pumpkin seeds and we ate them with our applesauce we made at the Halloween party. We made flow maps to show how we made the applesauce, too.
This was a great project and I would encourage other classrooms to participate. Thanks to Marilyn Western for telling the computer class this summer about the site. We are definitely going to participate in more of the online projects.

The address for the internet project site is www.jenuinetech.com.