Rotten Pumpkins

This past month, kindergarten students did a short research project. We wondered what happens to a pumpkin and jack-o-lantern after Halloween. First, students talked with a partner and guessed what would happen to the pumpkins. Many students predicted that they would rot, some said they would shrink or dissolve, and two students guessed that they might turn into a carriage. :) Here are links to each class's predictions:
​Mrs. Imai's class
Mrs. Landell's class
​Mrs. O'Rourke's class
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Every week, when the students came back to class, they looked at the pumpkin and jack-o-lantern to see how they had changed. Students drew and wrote about what they saw.

I see a squished pumpkin.

The jack-o-lantern has red stuff.

​They also came up with a very interesting question. They wondered if the red stuff on the lid was blood. We talked about how we can use books to find answers to our questions. We read the book Rotten Pumpkin: A Rotten Tale in 15 Voices by David M. Schwartz and discovered that the red stuff was a type of mold.

During Week 3, we noticed changes to the pumpkin. Students guessed that an animal had scratched it. Which animal? Guesses included a lion, tiger, cheetah, squirrel, dog, cat, mouse, raccoon, or bear.

​This time, we talked about finding an expert to help answer the question of what scratched the pumpkin. We sent an email to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. An official from the Wildlife Division informed us that a native Connecticut gray squirrel had gnawed on our pumpkin.

Week 4 was a sad week. When we came back to school on Monday, the jack-o-lantern was gone, and the pumpkin was smashed on the sidewalk. The DEEP wildlife expert said that it was mostly likely a human who had smashed the pumpkin. The smashed pumpkin is back at the edge of the woods. We will take a break from our observations for now and see how it looks in the spring. To end the project, students wrote about something they had learned. We are looking forward to seeing how the pumpkin has changed when we check again in the spring!

There is red mold inside the pumpkin.

I learned that a squirrel has scratched the pumpkin.