It's Pumpkin Time! Possible Interactive Notebook Activity

Learn about Pumpkins!

1. Pumpkins are thought to have originated in Central America, specifically Mexico. Some seeds found date back to 5,500 B.C.
2. Top pumpkin growers are U.S. farmers, who grow more than 1.5 billion each year.
3. The word pumpkin comes from the French word for “large melon,” pompon. The English used “pumpion” and colonists used “pumpkin.”
4. The world’s largest pumpkin pie was made in New Bremen, Ohio, in 2010. The pie was made using 1,212 pounds of canned pumpkin, 109 gallons of evaporated milk, 525 pounds of sugar, 14.5 pounds of cinnamon, seven pounds of salt, and 2,796 eggs. It weighed 3,699 pounds.
5. Did you know that pumpkins are 90 percent water?
6. Some people used to believe that pumpkins could cure snake bites and help remove freckles!
7. In addition to orange, pumpkins can be green, yellow, tan, white, red, and blue.
8. The “Pumpkin Capital of the World” and home to Libby’s Pumpkins is Morton, Illinois.
9. The fibrous strands of string and seeds are called the “brains” of the pumpkin.
10. Carving pumpkins originated in Ireland using potatoes, rutabagas, and turnips. Irish immigrants to America started using pumpkins as they were easier to carve and hollow!
11. Part of the squash and cucumber family (Cucurbita), pumpkins are actually considered fruit!
12. Ohio, Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania are the top pumpkin-growing states.
13. In 2013, Keene, New Hampshire, kept the record for the most lit pumpkins—30,581! It held the record in 2016, too.
14. Crowned the record heaviest pumpkin grown in North America (2016), a Rhode Island man grew a pumpkin which weighed in at a whopping 2,261.5 pounds.
15. In 2016, a pumpkin grown in the country of Belgium tipped the scale at a whopping 2,623.5 pounds!
16. Pumpkin growers say that a 3,000-pound pumpkin is possible in the near future! It wasn't that many years ago that a 1,000-pound pumpkin, now a light weight, would have been newsworthy. The problem with growing such jumbos is that gravity often causes them to get smooshed, and then they can't qualify for judging.

Need a Writing Prompt?

The record pumpkin has just arrived in a large truck to your home. What would you do with this pumpkin? How would you describe it?

Other Activities

1. Illustrate a picture of one of the facts learned.
2. Write a poem about a pumpkin. Pretend you are a pumpkin and write about your day in the pumpkin patch, on a porch, or waiting to be purchased at a farmer’s stand.
3. Discuss syllables. Find seven words that have four or more syllables.
4. Can you spot seven ACTION VERBS in the pumpkin facts?
5. Write an acrostic poem using each letter in the word PUMPKINS.

*Try my webquest on pumpkins, which includes 10 web-based questions along with several comprehension questions and lots of extension activities.