Pumpkin investigation sheet for kids

Today, we have got to give you something for the famous Pumpkin season – we know, we love Halloween too! We have loads of resources, and fun ideas for Halloween already on the site. However, we haven’t done that much on pumpkins, so we feel we need to change this. Here is a fabulous, and simple Pumpkin investigation for the kids to try at home or in the classroom.

This is a beautifully simple, STEM activity that gets the kids thinking about science, while offering basic investigation and report writing skills. It is a really lovely way of bringing a bit of STEAM-based fun to the crazy Halloween season. It is a lovely activity to do after a visit to a pumpkin patch too. You can grab a few different sized pumpkins and investigate a few of them, or just pick one that the kids want to take home.

Don’t forget to get another one to carve though, we’ve loads of amazing pumpkin carving ideas for kids, so you don’t want to miss out on carving because you used your pumpkin for science!

Pumpkin investigation: How to do it

We have kept this simple, so all you are going to need for this is:

• Pumpkin,
• Pencil,
• Your worksheet,
• Scales,
• Scoop for the insides,
• Ruler,
• Spoon and knife to cut the pumpkin top off, and
• Your scientific mind!

What does the worksheet look like?

How to investigate your pumpkins

There really isn’t too much to this for the kids so all you need to do is:

1. Grab your pumpkin,
2. Weight it, and mark how much it weights within the worksheet,
3. Cut off the stalk (carefully!), this may need a bit of adult help here,
4. Scoop out the insides, and count the seeds within the pumpkin,
5. Measure the height of the pumpkin with a ruler,
6. Count the number of lines on your pumpkin,
7. Estimate whether the pumpkin is small, medium or large, and
8. Check to see if your pumpkin floats. Why not try this once before you remove the seeds and the again afterwards?

Once you have done this for a few pumpkins, the older children can start to see if there are any pattens emerging from the pumpkin investigation. For example:

• Do the bigger pumpkins always have more seeds?
• What range of lines do pumpkins have? Are there more on bigger pumpkins, or do they all tend to have the same number of segments?
• How heavy was the biggest pumpkin?
• How heavy was the smallest pumpkin?
• What is the different between the weights of the biggest and smallest pumpkins?
• Which pumpkin is going to be best for carving and why?

You can decide what further questions you ask the kids yourself of course, the possibilities are many.

<< In order to download this worksheet for pumpkin investigations, just click on the circular image below >>

This is a lovely simple activity for Halloween that has a few wonderful learning outcomes for the kids, and most importantly is LOADS of fun.

Why not check out some of the other Halloween and pumpkin activities that we have on the site too? Our favourite pumpkin activity is of course our pumpkin carving ideas, and the pumpkin bookmark we have. But there is a lot to choose from, so take your pick.

There are some other ideas from elsewhere:

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting us – we trust you like what you see here, and if you do, why not sign up either for our weekly newsletter:

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We would love to see you again on the site soon. Take care,

Helen

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