With the change of the season the Preschoolers began to show interest in pumpkins as we began taking the wilted vines from our one flower box on the playground. This led to the educators following the children’s interest in finding materials to include into our program like the book “Pumpkin Jack” by Will Hubbell. In the story, the character Tim carves his pumpkin and decides to name him Pumpkin Jack, and after Halloween and the fall season his mom has Tim get rid of Jack as it is beginning to rot. Tim decided to place Jack into his garden and throughout the story Tim checks in on Jack and experiences first hand how the pumpkin decomposes before sprouting into a new plant ultimately giving Tim many pumpkins during the fall season the following year.
With the hopes of recreating this story, we got a large jar, a small pumpkin and some soil to begin creating an environment we could place the carved pumpkin into to experience this life cycle right at our finger tips. Over the past month we have watched our very own Pumpkin Jack turn from a bright vibrant orange, to white around the edges of the cuts and on the stem, to mostly white all over. Most recently (and the most exciting change thus far) has been observing the white fuzzy stuff all around the pumpkin. One of the preschoolers asked “What’s happening? Why is he turning white?” and when we searched though the Pumpkin Jack book the preschoolers were able to determine what is happening, and what may happen next by following along with the story.
This type of experience not only allows for observation, testing and questioning theories and ideas but also to retell a story the children have grown to love. This creates connections and allows the preschoolers to seek understanding in a variety of ways not only through print, but through hands on experience. We have also shared ideas on what we think will happen next to our pumpkin to determine if it will follow the same expectations set out in the book, or allow for a different experience having us explore other things that are happening.
Moving forward we are hoping to continue to explore, observe, and question all of the natural decomposition processes that our pumpkin takes us through. We have a hope that we not only are able to experience this but also getting a pumpkin for next year as it travels through the life cycle.
