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pumpkin STEM challenges

5 Pumpkin STEM Challenges to Try [ep.128]

5 Pumpkin STEM Challenges to Try [ep.128]

pumpkin STEM challenges

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Episode Summary

With fall upon us, that means it’s time to start planning fall-themed activities for your STEM classroom. In today’s episode, I’m sharing 5 pumpkin STEM challenges for you to implement in your classroom. These STEM challenges were such a hit with my students, so I know your students will enjoy them, too.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • 5 pumpkin STEM challenges
  • Tips and strategies for implementing each pumpkin STEM challenge
  • How each activity connects to the standards

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:


Fall is here, and it's all things pumpkin over at my house. Take this theme into your classroom with these 5 STEM pumpkin-themed activities. I am getting in the mood for fall in this episode, and I am wearing the only orange shirt that I have in my closet, and it is a jack-o'-lantern shirt. So, if you're watching the video version of this podcast, you can check out the shirt that I found at Target 1 year ago.


Naomi Meredith [00:01:00]:


And you guys know I love a good theme and that it really involves teaching my whole k through 5 STEM year-long plan where every month has its own theme and tool that it's working on. But there are also times when I have liked to add in those themed seasonal activities, and the kids like it, too. So, it's fun to mix these things into your lesson plans. And also they can also make great backup sub plans if you can't seem to find out where to fit it in. So I saw over on Instagram the other day. It was a funny video. This guy was making something called a boo basket, where it's a basket of things for your wife that have to do with fall. And you said, dudes, if you're making this fall basket for your wife or your girlfriend, whoever, you have to figure out if she is a fall girly or a Halloween girly.


Naomi Meredith [00:01:58]:


There is a difference between the two, and you might even be laughing out loud because I did. And I'm, Oh, I'm a fall girly because I feel like with fall decorations. These are things that you can keep up from September through November. And you just add in those little pops September through November, and you just add in those little pops of Halloween when you want. I have a few little pops of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos because my teacher honey is a Spanish teacher, so he likes those little things as well. I do have these skeletons that are taking a selfie, which is super cute. And I do have some other skeleton pieces and all that. But I really go for the fall vibes in terms of what I have going on in my decor.


Naomi Meredith [00:02:44]:


The same is true for these STEM activities, these pumpkin activities, you can do these from September through November, and it will work at any time during those months, and it won't exclude anybody or isolate anything when it comes to specific holidays, and pop them in when you need a little bit of refresh in your classroom. So let's get into these fun 5 pumpkin-themed stem activities. Most of the lessons that I am going to be talking about I have them all bundled up together in a pumpkin-themed bundle. So you can check that out in my tpt shop, Naomi Meredith, or check it out in the show notes. Some of the things I don't have an official lesson plan for, so I'll mention that along the way, and just maybe there will be something one day. You never know. Sometimes, I just like to create ideas and think of them, and then you guys can just run with it. The first activity is pumpkin life cycle coding.


Naomi Meredith [00:03:41]:


All you need for this is the robots that your students will code with for their grade level and the pumpkin life cycle cards. This is a great way to really learn any type of life cycle. And there are a few variations that they could play with this. I recommend when you are using robots, have a grid where each of the grid spaces is measured so that the robot can travel to each space within one forward movement. So you do have to do some playing around with this to figure out the grid if you don't wanna purchase 1. I do have, separate from the pumpkin bundle, for most popular robots that you use in your classroom, some editable squares that are already perfectly measured, and they can cut those out and everything. But have a mat for your robots, and then you have the cards that go along with the life cycle of a pumpkin, and students can code their robot to go in order of those things. You can add in other fun variations, like a matching game or a memory game.


Naomi Meredith [00:04:44]:


You can add in dice where they have the code to a specific part. So there are lots of different variations. I have that included in that lesson plan ready to go. But another way to think about that s, science, and stem and add in that element of coding. The second activity is pumpkin digital activities. And I have 2 different variations because if you're teaching all the grades, you need a lot of different things to make sure you're hitting all those standards and have those age-appropriate activities. For k through 2, my students really, really liked this one, and they added it in as a STEM station for one of the stations they could attend to.


Naomi Meredith [00:05:25]:


But for K and 2, I had this pumpkin digital activity where every slide had something different to accomplish. It had a lot of different cross-curricular connections and even audio of me reading the directions. I created a version for Seesaw, also Google Slides, and PowerPoint. It's the same exact thing. My preference is Seesaw. You guys know that is one of my favorite tools, but the activity slides are really fun because they stay on that slide. They can listen to the directions being read to them, and then they can independently or even with a partner complete those activities, such as measuring the pumpkin vine with Unifix cubes, digital Unifix cubes, and see how long it is creating a pumpkin face using the different shapes. There's even a chance to match the letters to spell different words that are related to pumpkins and even labeling a pumpkin digitally.


Naomi Meredith [00:06:23]:


The kids really liked it. They felt excited about each of the activities, and they wanted to have me make a lot more of them. Though. This is something that I really enjoy doing as a stem station. Likewise, you could do this as a stem station or even something that students can go to throughout the week if they finish a project, but have for 2nd through 5th grade, a pumpkin digital interactive notebook. It has the same kind of vibes as the kindergarten version or the primary version, but of course, activities that are more at their level. So compare and contrast. What do you notice in this picture, looking at a graph and finding out data and things that they notice about the graph?


Naomi Meredith [00:07:06]:


So, again, this could be something that they can get to throughout the week. It doesn't have to be your day lesson. It can be if you have classes on a holiday. You know, students can be a little bit crazy if you're having classroom parties, and when they come into specials, you might need a more chill activity. I would do these digital interactive notebooks all the time when I was a 3rd-grade teacher and had them themed and related to the topic. And, again, this is something that they could get to if we finish the other projects or, like, as a may do thing like a fast finisher. So that is something that you can add to your curriculum. The next activity is to design a spooky pumpkin.


Naomi Meredith [00:07:47]:


This is something I don't currently have in my shop, but maybe sometime in the future. But using Lego bricks or if you have even some LEGO education kits like LEGO We Do 2.0. I know that kit is discontinued, but is still an excellent, excellent kit. Or maybe you have the upgraded, the newer versions like the Lego Spike essential kit. Students can create a spooky pumpkin, and using the motion sensor, they can code the pumpkin to make a sound. And this is a lot like when you see the decorations that you move past, and as soon as you move past that decoration, then it freaks you out. It makes you really scared. Oftentimes, those are turned on in stores, and you're like, oh my gosh, it's this, like, decoration is alive.


Naomi Meredith [00:08:38]:


So, the same kind of vibes and students can create that. And in the LEGO We Do Kit, the pieces aren't exactly orange. There are more orange pieces in the LEGO spike essential, but you get the idea, and they can get creative with that project. The next activity is building pumpkin bridges. This is something that you can go through the entire engineering design process, or if you wanna pair it down and feed through some of the steps, you could also do with this in one day. The goal for this challenge is for students are creating a bridge to hold as many pumpkins as possible. You can use a lot of different things for the bridges, such as pumpkin candies or unifix cubes, or maybe students have to make their own bridges, but this is a fun one that, again, you can stretch out as long as you want. Go through it fast and see the different types of bridges students come up with, and you can even talk about the engineering of bridges as an architecture piece.


Naomi Meredith [00:09:40]:


This is in the bundle that has everything laid out for you. And the last STEM activity is a 7 stories reading, how many seeds are in a pumpkin. This is something that I did again as a classroom teacher, but you could do this as a STEM teacher. And I had some kids donate pumpkins that they had or went and grabbed a pumpkin. And we had a few different pumpkins in the room, and we did different experiments and things that involve math with these pumpkins. So first we tested things like Do you think the pumpkin is going to sink or float? Why do you think that's going to happen? What is the outside like how many ridges are on the outside of the pumpkin, what does the pumpkin feel like, how many unifix cubes tall or you can even add in measuring with inches and centimeters. Students can even compare the data if you have multiple pumpkins in your classroom. And then students also had to guess how many seeds were in their pumpkin.


Naomi Meredith [00:10:41]:


And we did open the pumpkins up. And students scooped out the seeds. We had butcher paper all over. The students were on the floor, and they had to determine the best way to count all of the seeds in their pumpkin. And the great way of using butcher paper for this activity is that students can actually put the seeds in equal groups, they can draw, they can label, it does get a bit messy. So if you don't like messes, don't do this one. But it is a lot of fun for them to think about carving a pumpkin in a different way. Maybe some of your students have never done this before.


Naomi Meredith [00:11:16]:


You never know. You will definitely find out when you have them open up the pumpkin, and so are just another great way to get hands-on and make it a fun math activity. As a recap, here are the 5 pumpkin-themed STEM activities that you can use in your classroom. 1st is pumpkin life cycle coding. Next is pumpkin digital activities. 3rd, are creating a spooky pumpkin out of Lego bricks. 4th is designing a pumpkin bridge, and 5th is that STEM and stories connection, how many seeds are in a pumpkin, and dissect those pumpkins. Most of these lessons are packaged together nicely for you in a bundle so you can just grab and go and implement these in your classroom.


Naomi Meredith [00:12:01]:


You can find that in the show notes for this episode or even check it out on my TpT shop, Naomi Meredith. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you later, pumpkin.

pumpkin STEM challenges

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

fall-stem-activities

5 Fall STEM Activities to Try [ep. 23]

5 Fall STEM Activities to Try [ep. 23]

fall-stem-activities

Check out the full episode on 5 Fall STEM Activities to Try:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Watch the full episode

Episode Summary

Fall is in the air, and it is a great time to mix in some themed STEM challenges. These five fall STEM activities to try are perfect for one-day lessons, sub plans, or even class parties, especially since they are low prep challenges. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding
  • Fall-themed engineer inspiration boards
  • Pumpkin bridges
  • Pumpkin digital activities
  • Designing a harvest basket

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

Fall is in the air, and it is a great time to mix in some themed STEM challenges. These five fall STEM activities to try are perfect for one-day lessons, sub plans, or even class parties. Let's jump right into these low prep challenges.  


Naomi Meredith  00:27

If you haven't learned this about me by now, I love a good theme. You heard all about how I themed out my first unit of the year back in episode four, Welcome to STEM Survival Camp. If you take a peek around my house, I have some fall decorations peeking in the corners on my tables. Of course, I have all of those fall-flavored candles. In turn, I don't always teach themed lessons in my class. It can be really fun to integrate these within your lessons, especially if you need something quick that works for one day. If you really want to extend it throughout the week, all of these challenges will work perfectly for you and across many different grade levels. So let's jump into these five ideas that you can implement in your STEM space.  


Naomi Meredith  01:40

The first fall STEM activity to try is apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding. This is a great low prep challenge that you can use as a station, and students can learn all about the lifecycle of favorite harvest fruits like apples and pumpkins. You can do this challenge for anything, but these two are very popular during the fall season. All you need to do is have each stage of the lifecycle of the pumpkin or apple on different cards, and students will code in a variety of ways to help them learn more about those life cycles. So here are a few variations of this that you can use with the robots that you have in your classroom. This will work well with pretty much any type of robot that you have. The only one I think it might not work best with is Ozobots unless you have a special grid, you could definitely do this in a different way.  


Naomi Meredith  02:40

Speaking of grids, there are grids that you can purchase that are fancy for all of the robots. However, when you are on a budget like most of us, it is sometimes easier to create your own grid that the robots can move along is really helpful for students to visualize the steps that they need their robot to travel. Most robots for children have very specific movements when they are moving forward in one space. You can create your own mat by measuring the distance of one forward move for each robot. However, I have created a lot of these for all the smaller robots and RDS with all the measurements done for you. So you can just print, cut, glue, and create whatever size mat that you want. Of course, all of the challenges that I will be talking about and these gridlines will be linked in the show notes to save you some time with your fall theme planning.  


Naomi Meredith  03:35

So for this lifecycle coding, create a map or use one that you have on hand and have those cards that are about the lifecycle of that living thing. You can even have students be more involved in this creation process. They can create the cards that they will code for that specific lifecycle. Once all of these resources are created, here are variations that you can play with these cards. If you're creating the grid ahead of time, you can laminate the different stages of the lifecycle of the pumpkin or apple. Students will code to those different locations on the grid. Another variation of this challenge is students can be in partnerships. Instead of having the cards laminated on the grid, they can be movable. One partner can place the cards on the grid-facing app, and the other partner will code the robot to gather all of the pieces in order of the lifecycle, and then they can switch. The third variation would be having that partner system, but then they have to code the lifecycle backward. The fourth variation is they can either go backward or forward, but instead of the grid-facing app, they can have them facing down, and it can be more like a memory game.  


Naomi Meredith  04:53

So there are a lot of different variations to this and with the age of your students and their coding experience. It's fun for them to try these different challenges to practice their coding skills. The second fall STEM activity to try is creating one-page inspiration boards that follow along with any of the fall holidays you are discussing in your classroom. These could be things like the Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, Halloween, or even for the whole month, such as what different things are typical for that month. For instance, for the month of September, October, and November, what are different items that people think of for that month? You can have different pictures on this one-page board that can inspire students to build, such as apples, pumpkins, baskets, you name it. You can have these visuals for students, and then they can build with any materials that you have on hand, whether it'd be items in your Makerspace or if you want to pull out LEGO bricks. I really like using this type of engineer inspiration board with my younger students, especially when a lesson might go quicker than expected. These are really great to have on hand that you can have printed at a station, or you can display on the projector or TV in your classroom.  


Naomi Meredith  06:14

The third fall STEM activity to try is creating a pumpkin bridge. Again, this can be a one-day challenge in your classroom, or, if you want to dive in deeper, you can extend this for the whole week and use the Engineering Design Process. If you are a bit unsure about what the Engineering Design Process is, fairly recently, I had a whole mini-series about the Engineering Design Process where I dove into every single stage of that process to give you ideas on how to teach this in your classroom. So make sure to go back and listen to those because that will help you extend your knowledge whether you use the Engineering Design Process already or looking to gain more knowledge about it. For this pumpkin bridge challenge, you can use any materials you have on hand. I like to use popsicle sticks, tape, and cups. Students will build one of the types of bridges that we talked about in class to hold as many pumpkins as possible. This is fine if you use the pumpkin candies that you can find at the store. You can also use unifix cubes as I have. I'll tell the kids that the pumpkins are square because they came right out of Minecraft. There's a whole lot of buy-in for that, and they don't mind that the pumpkins are different colors. You could do a whole lot of math afterward, like how many pumpkins could it hold, and compare the different bridges in the classroom. You could measure how long the bridge was, how wide the bridge was, or how tall. So there's a whole lot of math that you could do with this STEM challenge.  


Naomi Meredith  07:30

The fourth fall STEM activity to try is pumpkin digital activities. Now this one isn't as hands-on, but it's a great way to implement the T-technology within your classroom if you want something that is paperless and easy to assign. I have two different variations for the grades. So for K through two, I like to create a digital interactive activity that they can use on Seesaw or Google slides that are quick little tasks on each slide. These tasks are helpful for the students because they can practice their digital skills, such as dragging and dropping, drawing on the screen, and labeling a picture. All of those tech skills are important for any type of activity, not just pumpkins. You can create each slide that goes along with a theme, like pumpkins. They can do things like measuring a vine using digital unifix cubes. They can use the shape tools to decorate a picture of the pumpkin or even an alphabet match where students are dragging the letters to help them spell different words such as pumpkins. Having these slides with quick activities helps students be successful. They can work at their own pace and also help each other out when they get stuck. For the older students, you could do something similar, but I also like to give them digital interactive notebooks that help them explore other outside resources that are kid friendly. This is where I like to pull in other resources such as podcasts, videos, paired selections, and nonfiction and fiction texts, and they can respond within the digital interactive notebook. You could share just one slide a day. You could have it be differentiated where certain kids might have specific slides, or you can have it even open-ended, and kids pick the slides that are most interesting to them. So this is a great way to pull in those outside resources that you might have been collecting over the years and assign them to one digital platform.  


Naomi Meredith  08:01

The fifth fall-themed STEM activity to try is having students design a harvest basket. Now, this isn't a lesson that I have in my store yet, maybe by the time this recording comes out, it will be in there. But this would be another fun challenge that you can use the Engineering Design Process or even do it in one day. You can have tiny pumpkins or tiny apples, or even pretend if you're worried about them getting damaged, and students could use materials like straws, popsicle sticks, or string to create a harvest basket to hold as many of these fruits as possible. This will be a great collaboration challenge, and also learn different techniques when it comes to securing items and being able to hold weight. If you wanted to extend this challenge even further, you could have students weigh how many apples or how many pumpkins their basket was able to hold. Then you could compare the weights using greater than and less than place value, or even graphing, depending on the age of your students and the math standards that would tie into those.  

 

Naomi Meredith  09:04

This was a quick episode today, but just some fun fall STEM activities that you can try in your STEM space and bring the fall into your classroom. So let's go over those five different activities that you can try. First is the apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding. Next, our fall-themed engineer inspiration boards. Third, are pumpkin bridges. Fourth is pumpkin digital activities. And fifth is designing a harvest basket. I hope you enjoyed these fall-themed activities and definitely share with me what you have done in your classroom. I would love to see how it goes with your students. 

 

fall-stem-activities

 

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!