Pumpkin Life Cycle Books
One of the best plants I’ve grown in my school garden has to be pumpkins. Pumpkins are planted and harvested during the school year, providing rich opportunities for children to observe and care for the plant during its entire life cycle. These Pumpkin Life Cycle books give children a complete scientific overview of plant life cycles, but it is the hands on learning and growing that really provides a deep and meaningful understanding. Use these books to support your garden learning and get your school or backyard pumpkins growing this year, or just to have fun and enjoy a pumpkin story!
Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. A favourite in our house! Buy the audiotape with the book for a jaunty and fun Halloween sing-along that shows the value of co-operation and how pumpkins are prized for their tasty seeds and delicious pie making insides at the end of their life cycle!
From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer. Beautifully illustrated to show the stages of a pumpkin’s life as a seed transforms into a mature pumpkin.
How Many Seeds In A Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara. An excellent book for introducing the concept of skip counting and understanding that one pumpkin produces many, many seeds that can multiply into hundreds of pumpkins. Related: Check out my post on Halloween Pumpkin Math for more ideas on how to use your school grown pumpkins to teach mathematical thinking.
Life Cycles: Pumpkins by Robin Nelson. A close up look with non-fiction photos of the pumpkin plant and life cycle from seed to seed.
Pumpkin Circle: The Story Of A Garden by George Levenson. From seed to seed, children learn the cycle of life is continuous! Excellent photographs that clearly outline the lifecycle of a pumpkin.
Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell. One of the best books to examine the decomposition of a pumpkin and the inadvertent growth of a new generation of pumpkin plants!
Pumpkin Town by Katie McKy. A silly story about rogue pumpkins that overgrow a town. A good story for exploring the size and spread of a pumpkin plant!
Ready For Pumpkins by Kate Duke. A lovely story that emphasizes the patience and time that is required to observe a pumpkin grow from seed to fruit.
Rotten Pumpkin by David M. Schwatrz. Part story, part non-fiction, this book depicts the complexity of pumpkin decomposition alongside the predictability of life cycles. The perfect mentor text for the decomposing pumpkin activity outlined below!
The Pumpkin Patch by Elizabeth King. A good overview of how pumpkins are farmed with photographs of the seed to jack-o-lantern cycle.
RELATED POST: Halloween Pumpkin Math
DECOMPOSING PUMPKIN ACTIVITY
Once Halloween is over and you’ve got pumpkins a’ plenty, go ahead and make scientific inquiries as to when and how pumpkins might decompose in your school yard. Over many years, we have encouraged children to make a scientific hypothesis that includes a timeline for decomposition and the conditions that might accelerate or decelerate the process. Rotten Pumpkin and Pumpkin Jack (books recommended in this post) are the perfect mentor texts for this activity. Go ahead and bury some pumpkins, hide others under shrubs, and leave a few out in the open to observe week over week! Don’t forget to tag me on your social media shares at @roomtoplay, so I can see your experiments too!