Pumpkins and Place Value

October is a great month for counting pumpkin seeds. Have each child bring in a pumpkin. You can estimate the weight, measure the circumference, count the ridges, and carve it with geometric shapes. There are 10's if not 100's of ways to use math to describe a pumpkin.

Counting the seeds is one of my favorite ways to explore place value. During the week before we will be counting seeds I ask parents to send in a pumpkin. I introduce the Pumpkin Theme by reading From Seed to Pumpkin in order to learn about the life cycle of the pumpkin.

When all of the pumpkins have been brought in we put them in order from smallest to largest and then estimate the number of seeds in each pumpkin.

Photo Credit: Place Value
on Flickr, Creative Commons

1. Put one seed at a time on the plastic orange plate.
2. Ten pumpkin seeds go in a small plastic pumpkin.
3. Ten small plastic pumpkins go in the large plastic pumpkin.

Draw pumpkin leaves on green paper and draw a line down the middle. Write tens on the top of the left hand side and ones on the top of the right hand side. Laminate the Pumpkin Patch mat.

Make a stack of pumpkin shaped cardstock cutouts. Write two digit numbers on the pumpkins. On the back draw the pumpkins for self checking.

Each child or pair of children needs a pumpkin Patch Mat, some Pumpkin Cards, 9 Pumpkin Erasers and 9 pumpkin seeds. Erasers are worth 10 seeds.

Children show the number of pumpkins growing in the field using Erasers and Seeds.

These are the very best books I have found for teaching Place Value using hands-on methods. They have hundreds of ideas for making math come alive for the children.

The idea for counting pumpkin seeds, from the Mathematics Their Way program, was one of the first hands-on lessons I taught and it is still one of my favorites. I was substituting in a classroom in central Vermont where small classes and cooperation allowed the first and second grade teachers to collaborate on innovative ideas. The teacher brought a large pumpkin into the classroom and the math class began. We estimated the circumference and weight, graphed the estimations and then guessed the number of pumpkin seeds that the pumpkin would contain.

Finally we were allowed to cut off the top and begin counting. We counted ten pumpkin seeds by placing one seed at a time on a laminated sheet of paper or math mat with nine small circles, one for each pumpkin seed. When each of the circles was filled and the next one had no place to go, we slid all of them off into a paper cup. Nine paper cups were provided with a small plastic pumpkin off to the left and ten cups full of pumpkin seeds were dumped into it.

We discussed place value and soon learned the number of pumpkin seeds found in the pumpkin. The children were told that they would be carving and counting pumpkins all week and that they would discover that their estimations would become more and more accurate.

Program pumpkin cutouts with numbers between 0 and 99.

1. Pass the pumpkin while playing music.
2. When the music stops the child holding the pumpkin takes out a pumpkin card, reads the number and shows it's value by setting out the correct number of small plastic pumpkins (tens) and seeds (ones).

Variation: Once the group understands how to play this game it can be played in small groups of 3 or 4 at the same time.

Note:Make sure that the groups are of mixed abilities and that everyone gets a chance to show the number values.

Make a pattern with pumpkins, leaves and apples for your calendar. Each day you slip in the next number and guess the pattern as each day's picture is revealed.

Make a number line adding a number each day. Write the numbers 1-9 on each of the and the number 10 on the large pumpkin. Continue on for the rest of the month or until you get to as high a number as your children are learning to count to.

Number lines help children visualize the meaning of Place Value.

More ideas for teaching with a pumpkin theme.

Books and activities for the Pumpkin Literacy Bag.

Items for the Pumpkin Literacy Bag which extend learning from the classroom into the home and between families.

To use place value to count the turkeys:
1. Make a group of ten turkeys.
2. Put the ten turkeys on a square.
3. Count the turkeys by 10's.