Want to celebrate fall and help your children with their math skills at the same time? Take advantage of the fall season and plant the seeds for new and fun math activities in your classroom with the Pumpkin Seeds Math Activity!
How Can I Use This Activity in the Classroom?
This activity is as simple as creating small pumpkins out of an old egg carton! Once they are created and painted, write a number on the side of each pumpkin. Children will love counting out the correct number of pumpkin seeds for each pumpkin based on its corresponding number. You could also mix the seeds up and encourage children to help you to match the correct number of seeds to each pumpkin—the possibilities for math learning are endless with this activity!
Pumpkin Seed Math is also perfect for older learners. For more advanced counters, expand this activity to help children improve their addition or subtraction skills. For example, let children create simple equations with the pumpkins and solve them with the pumpkin seeds. If you have a pumpkin with the number 3 and a pumpkin with the number 2, have children show you that together they have 5 seeds, or, when subtracted, you'll end up with only 1 seed. There's a path to math fun for every learning level in this activity!
Download our FREE printable below!
Safety Note: Supervise children at all times during this activity to ensure no one ingests the small pumpkin seeds.
Required Materials:
- Empty 1 Dozen Egg Carton
- Scissors
- Paintbrush
- Orange Acrylic Paint
- Green Chenille Stems/Pipe Cleaners
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Black Marker
1Gather Your Materials
Begin by making sure you have everything you need to create your pumpkins for the pumpkin seed math activity. This includes your empty 1 dozen egg carton, scissors, a paintbrush, orange acrylic paint, green chenille stems/pipe cleaners, and a black marker.
2Create Your Pumpkins!
First, take your egg carton and use your scissors to cut out each individual egg holder—there should be 12 in total. Once this is done, take your orange acrylic paint with your paintbrush and paint each of the 12 egg holders. This is when they start to look like little pumpkins! Next, take your scissors and poke a hole at the top of each pumpkin. Then, once they've dried a bit, take your green chenille stems or pipe cleaners and stick 1 through each hole and twist it to make your pumpkin stems! Lastly, take your black marker and number each pumpkin with a unique number. We recommend numbering them 1 through 12 since this was made from a 1 dozen egg carton.
3Let the Counting Commence!
Gather your pumpkin seeds. Make sure that you have plenty for your children to use for this activity! Then, let the math fun begin. Safety Note: Supervise children at all times during this activity to ensure no one ingests the small pumpkin seeds.
Fall into learning with fun seasonal activities and crafts! Browse our selection ofclassroom arts and crafts and related resourcesto support creative explorations with your children.