Seed Counting
Learning Goals: Fine Motor Skills, Number Sense, Self-Regulation, One-to-One Correspondence, Estimations, Subitizing
- As a whole class, read the book "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?" by Margaret McNamara.
- After reading, present a pumpkin and have students guess how many seeds are in that pumpkin.
- Once everyone has guessed, cut open the pumpkin and place the seeds in multiple bowls.
- If you don't want this to get too messy, then you can wash and dry seeds and return to this activity later.
- If you don't mind the mess, then this naturally leads into our "Sensory Seeds" activity before counting as well.
- Give each small group of students their own bowl that they are responsible for counting.
- Watch all the creative ways and systems that they come up with for counting the seeds. Let students use classroom materials if they choose.
- Once all groups are finished, come back as a class so students can share their total and tell others about the way they counted.
- In this activitiy, the accuracy of the final number isn't important but rather all the ways of counting and the self-regulation/teamwork building.
