Pumpkin Day in Second Grade

We left letters for the Great Pumpkin yesterday before we left for the day. Look what was waiting for us on the desks this morning! Lots of snacks because we are a sincere pumpkin patch.
Today was also our October reading celebration. These students got pins for filling up their charts by reading every night!
These were our top readers with over/almost 1,000 minutes each for the month of October.

Our class total for October reading minutes was (drum roll, please...): 16,294 minutes. (That's 272 hours or 11 days total! We made the connection that if we started reading on October 1 and read all the way through Columbus Day on October 11, that would represent our reading total!) Way to read, Bumblebees!
Next, we wrote a "How To" entitled "How to Make a Pumpkin Sandwich". We mixed cream cheese with a secret ingredient to make it orange. (We later figured out it was powered Jello.) We spread it on pumpkin shaped pieces of bread. We decorated it with raisins, Smarties and candy corn.
Viola! Delicious open-faced Pumpkin Sandwiches.
C brought in his Houdini trick to amaze the class. (CB held the keys to the lock while C performed this slight of hand.) (Never a dull moment in second grade.)

And next, we got out our pumpkins based on book characters!

We are not the only school that does this project. Read this post from one of my favorite bloggers, Big Mama, for her hilarious view on making a pumpkin into a book character with her second grader in San Antonio.
E chose the character Bad Kitty, from the book "Bad Kitty Takes a Bath" by Nick Bruel.
E chose Mia from "Mia the Bridesmaid Fairy" by Daisy Meadows.
B chose Kiley from "Kiley the Carnival Fairy" by Daisy Meadows.
A chose Greg Heffley from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
EK chose Chrysanthemum from the book of the same name by Kevin Henkes.
R chose Harold from the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson.
J chose Greg from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
I chose Hubie from the book "The Librarian From the Black Lagoon" by Mike Thaler.
J chose Greg from the book "Diary of the Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
L chose the Alien from "Toy Story 3: Toy Trouble" by Kiel Murray.
E chose Willie Wonka from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl.
L chose Greg as a pirate from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
E chose Toothless from the book "How to Train Your Dragon" by Cressida Cowell.
C chose Snoopy and Woodstock from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" by Charles Shulz.
J chose Greg from the book "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
C chose Manny from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.
Our next project was to find the weight, height, circumference, the number of seeds and the number of ribs of our table pumpkins.
First, we had to scoop out the "guts" of the pumpkin and come up with a strategy for counting all those seeds.
It was a messy job, but somebody has to do it.
Which would have the most seeds: the smaller pumpkins or the larger pumpkins?
This table used the strategy of grouping their seeds in piles of 10 for quick counting.

The result? All four pumpkins, regardless of size, had about the same number of seeds!

Pumpkin Day was a great success, and a good time was had by all. Have a happy and safe Halloween. Please do not send your child to school all hopped up on sugar Monday morning unless you have some chocolate to share with the teacher!