How to make delicious pie from a pumpkin with your toddler

Preparing pumpkin for pie can be a fall sensory experience your children look forward to every year.

Two ambitious to preschoolers to manage, and all the traditional dishes to prepare for Thanksgiving. Other women were cooking delicious dishes from their own countries, but it fell to me to bring the traditional American Thanksgiving fare.

10 Fun kids STEM ideas for Fall!

A crisp breeze rustles the golden leaves just outside the window, distracting your students from today's lesson.  On days like this, you kind of wish you had a good excuse to just head out to the school yard.

How to Protect Migrating Birds from Flying into Your Windows

On a lovely day in late spring, moms were chatting, and children playing when "THUD". The sickening sound of a bird hitting a window sounded through our home. The children rushed outside to help the poor creature, while the moms called to them not to touch the poor creature.

Why is there More Wind in the Spring and Fall? and 10 Amazing Do ItYourself Wind Chimes

The neighborhood sirens scream. I grab the baby and call my kids into the hallway, checking my phone to figure out just how far away the tornado is. Tornados come when winds pick up in the spring and fall. The wind can be scary, but most days we enjoy the breeze. It's a great time to build a wind chime, and I have ten amazing wind chime ideas for you. Why is it extra windy during spring and autumn?

What's so special about spring and autumn?

To understand why the winds pick up in spring and fall, think about what else is happening. In the spring, the suns rays are becoming more direct, and beginning with the Equinox, are hitting the earth for more of the day than not.

The result of this direct radiation from the sun is that the air near the surface begins to warm. You may have heard the phrase "heat rises." That isn't true, but warm air rises.

As the air particles heat up, they expand to a greater volume for the same mass. This is called lower density. You could say that the warm air weighs less. It begins to float for the same reason boats float. As the warm air rises, cool air flows in to replace it, and the result is known as wind.

In the fall, the whole system works in reverse, with warm air being forced out of the way. 

Exactly how the wind will blow can't be exactly predicted. They follow a pattern best described by Chaos Theory.

I have some amazing Do IT Yourself wind chimes to help you take advantage of the breezes.

Do it Yourself Windchimes

Clock wise 
Clothespin Windchimes from B-Inspired Mama
Pony Bead Windchimes from Where Imagination Grows
Key Wndchimes from Inner Child Fun
Nature Windchimes from Hands on as We Grow

More great wind chimes  Rainbow Windchimes from sticks from Happy Hooligans
Coffee can Windchimes also from Happy Hooligans
Cutlery Windchimes from Red Ted Art
Bamboo Windchimes from Michelle Made Me
Recycled Windchimes from Maker Mama Craft Blog (This one is really simple!)
Out door Music Windchimes from Hands on as We Grow

Wishing you a gentle change of seasons, with no tornadoes and winds just right for a lovely wind chime.

You may also be interested in

A Simple Introduction to Chaos Theory
A Weather Demo you can do while making dinner
Easy Windsock to make with Kids
Why boats float + 10 boats to make

Beautiful Multiplication Pine Cone Craft

Multiplication practice from a nature art approach. Use pine cones to make math fun.

At 1:00 pm, a young student stares out the window, oblivious to the math lesson: at 4:00 pm, that same student stares at a pine cone she found on the walk home. Her eyes follow every crevice, and as her fingers trace the rough sticky surface, as she breaths it's fresh aroma.

How to Use an Obstacle Course to Give Thanks

"We need to hang a pumpkin from the tree."  On a recent bright fall day we had some friends visit. They kindly brought us lunch, and T-Rex was excited to set up this Thanksgiving obstacle course our friends to try. Of course a hanging pumpkin was high on his list of obstacles.

Fantastic Kindergarten Science Experiment with Pumpkin

How to Set Up a Pumpkin Engineering Task Your Second Graders Will Love

Kids in the Kitchen: Chicken 'n Science

Cooking is one of those hands-on activities that naturally employs all sorts of STEM  skills: science as you observe change, technology (especially if you are into gadgets like my husband!), engineering as you control change, and math as you measure and time.  Today, I am excited to join the Kids in the Kitchen Project hosted by Jennifer at Study at Home Mama.  I like to precook a whole chickens for future use, and my kids love helping me pick the meat. Here is how you can learn some great science while preparing your own chicken dinner!

How to Teach Algebra with Leaves

Last week, I posted a lesson idea for sharpening students understanding of multiplication and estimation using leaves.  This post is an extension of that same idea, moving it into algebra and allowing the students to get a taste of real world mathematical modeling.

Use Algebra to Analyze Leaves

Start your lesson just like I suggested in the post, How to Teach Multiplication with Leaves.   I would recommend having your students work in groups of 2-4 to accomplish these tasks.  If you are working with more advanced students, you should be able to move quickly to the point of setting up the multiplication equations to find the number of veins in each leaf.

Next, point out that rather than repeating the process for every leaf, it would be faster to make an equation that would work for every leaf, then just plug in the numbers to the equation.  Challenge your students to come up with the equation.  

You may want to have them work out some mini-equations first.

          #tiniest veins = (tiniest veins/small vein) * #small veins

         # small veins = (small veins/medium vein) * # medium veins

The mini-equations can be added together, and the final equation will look like this....

Total = (#Tiniest veins/small vein) *(#small veins) + (#small veins/medium vein) * #medium vein . . .

Of course, this equation can then be simplified.  When the equation is simplified, it becomes apparent that, mathematically, the unique feature of each leaf is the ratio of small veins to larger veins.  Each leaf can be described quickly as a unique set of numbers corresponding to these ratios.  The final step is to describe each leaf as a list of these ratios.

Real World Application

Log into a map program and pull up several maps of cities.  Include your own town, and the nearby cities best known to your students.  Ask your students to compare the highway system to that of the leaves you have just been analyzing.  If all your examples are similar to the leaves, you may want to pull up Washington D.C. as a contrast.  Washington D.C. has a traffic pattern that is radically different from the pattern seen in a tree leaf.  It also has horrible congestion, which illustrates the importance of following natures patterns.

Discuss in class, or assign a short essay on the topic:  "How should the highways and streets of a city be laid out for most efficient traffic flow?"  Ask your students to base their reasoning on the assumption that nature gives us an effective blue print for movement of large number of units, and to use actual numbers in their answers.

I hope this idea is helpful to you in engaging your students in math and making helpful connections with the natural world.  I would love to hear how it works out for you!

Other posts you may enjoy:

How to Teach Multiplication with Leaves

I have heard that the leaves are almost over up north, but locally, our trees are just starting to show their colors.  Students love anything seasonal, so using leaves to teach multiplication and estimation would be a great way to boost engagement in your math class.

Materials

leaves

magnifying glass (optional)
pencil and paper

Get Started

Tell your students to count the number of veins in a leaf.  Let them work for five or ten minutes, or until they get frustrated.

Introduce Multiplication as a New Method

If none of your students has caught on yet, show your students how to estimate the number of veins in by multiplying the number of small veins coming off of each larger shoot by the number of larger shoots to determine the number of small veins.

Discuss Estimation

Have a class discussion or assign a paragraph on the topic, "Is using estimation by multiplication or simply counting the number of veins a better way to find the total number of veins in the leaf?"

I hope your students enjoy bringing the lovely fall (or spring!) foliage indoors while sharpening their multiplication skills and learning the value of estimation.