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Pumpkin Geography


Cherise Croff, a third grade teacher at Perry Elementary School in Perry, Ohio

During the month of October, I take advantage of the pumpkin harvest to bring hands-on geography to my students.

After spending a month becoming familiar with the location of the seven continents and the major bodies of water, each student is given a pumpkin to turn into a globe. Students paint the entire surface of the pumpkin blue to represent water. Next, they use pushpins to position and trace the outline of each continent onto their pumpkins. They use actual globes as models and are careful to place the continents in the correct hemisphere. Then, they paint and label each continent a different color. They label the major bodies of water and use white paint to represent the North and South Poles.

While they work on their globes, I take pictures using the digital camera. We complete this project by importing the pictures and adding text on the computer to make a class book titled “Pumpkin Geography,” which we all enjoy enormously.

 

COMMENTS:

1 - 8 out of 8 Comments | Add your comment

jj | 2011/10/30

what type of paint do you use?

jj | 2011/10/30

what type of paint do you use?

jj | 2011/10/30

what type of paint do you use?

Lois Weber Lweber49@aol.com | 2011/10/27

Love this idea! I taught at this great school in the early 60's, before moving to FL. Altho retired, I work with Jr. Gardeners at 3 schools and am the state "SCHOOLS & Backyard Gardening Chairman", especially growing for birds and butterflies! We enter winning "books" on these, creating future environmentalists.

Pat | 2011/10/26

I loved this idea. Geography is so hard to make interesting - this works. Don't forget to teach longitude and latitude etc. before the painting begins.

Raymond | 2011/10/26

Absolutely amazing. Great idea. I'll be using it.

Raymond | 2011/10/26

Absolutely amazing. Great idea. I'll be using it.

Elvera | 2011/10/26

Great idea! I have wondered for years what to do with my pumpkins that I give each child.

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