South Haven Early Childhood Center students combined their newly acquired English language arts and mathematics skills with their fondness for pumpkins and Halloween. 

Karen Ernst’s students learned the days of the month by placing pumpkins on each of the dates during the start of the school day, strengthening their knowledge of the topic.  They also read various fall and Halloween stories, including Wendell Minor’s “Pumpkin Heads.”

During a combination math and ELA activity called Five Little Pumpkins, students read a poem about how a certain number of pumpkins would fall off a fence, asking the students to guess how many were left. They were also instructed to place pumpkin seeds on a paper pumpkin to match the number and to illustrate one-to-one correspondence. 

During an activity where they practiced their listening skills, Ms. Ernst instructed the students to use geometric shapes to create a pumpkin face according to her directions. They also talked about the shape of a pumpkin and participated in a tactile finger painting project, using their hands to paint a carved pumpkin.