October Math and Ideas

Positive/Negative Math

This is a great way to teach symmetry and positive/ negative at the same time!

This looks a lot harder than it was. My kindergarten class was able to do it without any big problems. But, we did this in a small group.

We used:

1 -- black construction paper 6 inches x 9 inches

2 pieces of orange paper 4 1/2 inches x 3 inches

Start at the bottom and draw a pumpkin with a stem. Starting at the bottom, students cut out the pumpkin. It has to be all in one piece to work! They also need to save both parts. There are no scraps to this project!!

They glue one part at the top and line up the orange and black papers at the top, left corner. Then I tell them to put the cut out right under where the hole is located.

For the second pumpkin, they repeat the directions, but reverse the cut out on the other section. This also gives it a checker board effect.

I have also posted a picture of a ghost using the same idea. It might be easier for young ones to do the ghost first. Ghosts can be any shape? You can also use larger paper.

A pumpkin estimation activity with directions, photos and PDF files to make a bulletin board display is included in the October Ideas Package.

Pumpkin Glyph

Each student was given a pumpkin to cut out according to the directions on the Glyph map.

Glyphs can be made to gather any information that you would like. After the pumpkin is completed, we discuss what we can tell by "reading" their pumpkin.

The directions for our glyph were:

Tall pumpkin = boy

Short pumpkin = girl

Triangle nose = 4 year old

Square nose = 5 year old

Round nose = 6 year old

Grin = have siblings

Scary = no siblings

Green stem = have a pet

Brown Stem = no pet

The glyph directions can be changed to whatever you would like. You could make it into a pumpkin man and add legs, arms, etc to gather more information. I always like to have a glyph map on display when we put them on the bulletin board for others to be able to interpret.