Andrea Nadeau

November 1, 2018
Fall 2018
ECED372

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

TITLE OF LESSON – “How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?”

CONTEXT OF LESSON

Since Halloween is during the week of this activity and the children do celebrate Halloween, we will
be using pumpkins as the main piece of material. This will revolve around the Halloween and fall
theme. I will read the book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? to lead us into the math and health
science lessons. The math and health science involved is appropriate because the five senses and
counting are very important and tend to be a repeating piece of curriculum for Kindergarten. At the
end of the activity, we will have discussion that will lead into the life cycle of a pumpkin. Later in the
day, we will read the book, Pumpkin Jack, which will tie into the curriculum of life cycles. From
what I have observed, my practicum students are very curious with their five senses, which will cause
major interest in digging into pumpkins and feeling the insides of the pumpkin. I also have observed
their counting skills, and their readiness for counting seeds is prominent.
This fits within the sequence because we are going on a pumpkin patch field trip on Friday Oct. 26th,
and then learning about life cycles during the seasons curriculum. The math and health science
portion fit in because it is a repeating piece of curriculum for Kindergarten that we practice every day.

OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT

Developmental Objectives Assessment

1. The students will describe the
inside of their pumpkin and its
seeds using their five senses.
2. The students will count how
many seeds that are in their
group of pumpkin guts.
3. The students will watch the
decomposition of the pumpkin
and observe the end of the
pumpkin’s life cycle.
I will listen to the students use their five senses when describing their
pumpkin guts. I will listen for words such as, “orange, gooey, slimey,
hard, squishy and smelly”. If necessary, I will ask, “How do the guts of
your pumpkin feel? What do they look like? What do they smell like?”
The next day, they will use their sense of taste to describe the taste of the
pumpkin seeds. I will record the information on the attached data
collection instrument.
I will observe different students with their pumpkins seeds to see if they
are counting them. Once I see that most of them have counted their seeds,
I will ask each student how many seeds they have. I will then record the
amount of seeds that each student has on the attached data collection
instrument.
I will leave the pumpkins in the classroom so that the students can watch
the progression of the pumpkin’s decomposition. However, at the end of
this activity we will use pictures to go over the life cycle of the pumpkin
and show possible forms of decomposition.

COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA

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(Attached)

RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING

K.1 The student will identify and describe key health and safety concepts.

e) Describe the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) and major body parts (e.g., head,

trunk, arms, legs, hands, and feet).

Mathematics, Number and Number Sense-

K.3 The student will

a) count forward orally by ones from 0 to 100

MATERIALS NEEDED

4 Medium sized pumpkins-Myself

Scoops-Myself
12 paper bags-Myself
Bulletin board butcher paper- Myself from the school
The book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?- Mrs. Breeden
Life Cycle Pictures- Mrs. Breeden
The book, Pumpkin Jack -Mrs. Breeden

INSTRUCTIONAL CARDS

If I made instructional cards, I would have one card for each sense (touch, smell, hear, see, and taste). The taste
card would say “taste” and have an image of the pumpkin seeds on them with an image of a mouth; for the
touch card, it would say “touch” and have and image of hands and an image of the pumpkin guts; the smell
card would say “smell” and have an image of a nose with an image of the pumpkin guts on them; the hear card
would say “hear” and have an image of an ear on it with an image of the pumpkin guts on them; and last, the
see card would say “see” and have an image of eyes with an image of the pumpkin guts on them.
To use them, I would show one card at a time then assess each student by asking for describing words for that
sense. Then, I would move onto the next card until all five sense cards are used.

PROCEDURE

 Preparation of learning environment- I will lay butcher paper across one table and set an already carved
top pumpkin on it. During the set up, I will have the students sit on the sunshine rug to wait until the book is
read.

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 Engagement and introduction of the lesson- To start this activity, I will read the book, How Many Seeds
in a Pumpkin?. This book is what the lesson and activity is based upon. After reading I will ask random
students how many seeds they think are inside the pumpkin. After that, I will ask what they think the insides
of the pumpkin will be like. I will then say we are going to see the inside of the pumpkin. Then, I will split
the class into four groups of four.
 Implementation of the lesson- For this activity, I will instruct the students to use their hands to pull out
the guts of the pumpkin. They will then each have a pile of pumpkin guts and seeds in front of them at each
table. Once they have the piles of pumpkin guts, I will have them use their five senses to describe them. I
will ask them, “What are their hands feeling, their noses smelling, their eyes seeing, and their ears seeing?”
After having discussion about the descriptions of pumpkin guts, I will then have the students separate their
seeds from their pumpkin guts. Once the seeds are separated, I will instruct the students to count the amount
of seeds that they have. I will then record all the information that I have received on the data collection
instrument.
 Closure- The timer will be set for each group. When the timer rings, the group at my table will clean up
and transition to the next activity. This is a usual rotation transition for my class, therefore, it is something
they are used to.
 Clean-up – The pumpkins will be left in the classroom so that the students can watch the pumpkins
decompose as the days go on, which will tie into the end of the life cycle for the pumpkins. We are then
going to look at pictures of the life cycle and show the possible forms of decomposition of the pumpkins.
Mrs. Breeden and I will then take the pumpkin seeds and have them roasted so that on a later date they will
be able to describe what it tastes like with their mouths.

DIFFERENTIATION

After an observation of how each student learns and each student’s abilities, Mrs. Breeden and I decided on a
simple, yet interactive learning activity. This activity is not one that challenges learning, but reinforces
knowledge that is already there. At most, the amount of seeds will be a larger number than what they are used

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to counting to, so it will challenge them in counting. This takes the knowledge that they have and puts it into a
hands-on activity. If students struggle with the objectives of this activity, I will assist them in counting or
thinking of words that describe their pumpkin guts.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

I think that something that could go wrong could be that the students decide to throw, or inappropriately play
with the pumpkin guts. I would then ask the student(s) involved to not touch the pumpkin guts anymore and
just help their classmates count the seeds. Also, there could be a child that does not want to touch the pumpkin
guts. The solutions for this would be have them use gloves, or put them in a Ziploc bag so that they do not
have to touch it. If those do not work, I will have them count clean pumpkin seeds.

Lesson Plan Reflection

As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, reflect on the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to guide
your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

My lesson plan went way smoother than I imagined it would go. The only tiny difference in my plan was the
clean up and transition into the next lesson. Instead of leaving the pumpkins in the classroom, we donated them to
other staff to carve. We decided this in the moment because we realized that the decomposition was going to take
longer than we thought because the pumpkins were thicker and larger than imagined while making the lesson plan.
While clean up took a little longer than expected, I had the students move to the rug and watch a short film on the life
cycle of a pumpkin. Then we proceeded with the lesson and looked at pictures of the life cycle of the pumpkin and
different forms of decomposition. If I were to present this lesson again, I think I would use more time to demonstrate
counting the seeds in multiple ways rather than just telling the students how to count the seeds. I noticed that students
were have trouble with grouping the seeds in threes, fives, tens, and I feel like if I had more time, I would’ve
demonstrated the groupings and then told the students to do the same. That would have helped the students with
counting the seeds and the demonstration would have been more developmentally appropriate.
The overall attitude in the air was excitement during this lesson. I noticed that students had an impact on their
sensory vocabulary by using words such as gooey, squishy, slimey, etc. Girls would tend to say words like “ew” and
“disgusting” but yet seemed happy and excited in the activity and continued to play with the pumpkin guts. Guys
enjoyed the lesson all over and had fun playing around with the guts while also describing them with sensory words.
However, I believe that the pumpkins had an odd impact on their counting because they were so involved with how big
the pumpkin was that they just got excited and said a big number to match the size of the pumpkin. After that the
students were able to one by one count the seeds.
After this lesson, I would follow-up with more sensory experiences, that way they can use their senses for
other things and can gain a bigger vocabulary. I noticed that throughout the activity, the students would use words that
they were hearing from other students and I think it is best to do more sensory activities and present a bigger
vocabulary for their sensory learning. That way they can use their own words rather than listen to other students and
their words.
Throughout my ECED 372 course, I have learned that students learn more from interactive and hands-on
activities. Although I was learning about this, I didn’t see the true effect until I did this lesson. After being in the
classroom for a couple months, I had noticed that students benefited from the worksheets and paper activities.
However, once I presented my lesson and noticed the attitudes, demeanors, and eventually the learning, I realized that
students, specifically young children did benefit much more from my activity that was completely interactive and
hands-on, with no worksheets or paper.
The biggest thing that I learned about teaching through this activity is that no matter if I put every single word
that I plan to say or use to describe my lesson on my lesson plan, it will change in some way, big or small and I must

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be okay with it and go with the flow. Having the prior knowledge of lesson changes that happen quickly will keep me
more aware of the changes that could possibly happen and did happen during my lesson(s). It will also allow me to
stay open minded and positive when the changes do occur so that I do not become frustrated and can remain flexible
with the schedule I was given. Something that I learned about myself while planning and conducting this activity was
the fact that I tend to forget the little things that make a big difference. Little things such as the mushy guts soaking the
paper and making it soggy, or clean up taking longer due to the guts being all over the table since the paper got soggy
and the guts leaked through. I tend to worry more about the overall effect and bigger picture rather than the little things
that can affect the resulting big picture. Overall this lesson was not only for the kids but also for myself. While the
children learned about five senses, math, and literacy, I learned about myself and my teaching.

Data Collection Instrument

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Fall 2018
ECED372

Name How do the pumpkin guts How many seeds do your

feel, smell, look, and sound? pumpkin guts have?

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