#2694. A Favorite Pumpkin activity-Literature & Decomposition

Science, level: Elementary
Posted Sat Sep 21 09:02:03 PDT 2002 by Dragonfly Sky in Teachers.Net Mailring ().
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Materials Required: Copy of Mousekin's Golden House by Edna Miller, a pumpkin
Concepts Taught: Decomposition

Mousekin's Golden House by Edna Miller

Favorite Pumpkin Activity

From a Teachers.Net Mailring

Submitted by "Dragonfly Sky"

I read Mousekin's Golden House by Edna Miller to the class. It's a
great story with beautiful illustrations about a mouse that finds a
winter home in a discarded jack-o-lantern. As the winter goes on, the
jack-o-lantern "wraps around him" to keep him warm. It is actually
decomposing...and decomposition is part of our curriculum. We talk
about what could be happening to Mousekin's pumpkin. Our class them
cuts out a pumpkin...displays it through Halloween, then puts in the
garden at school to watch what happens to it. We keep a "pumpkin
journal" through the end of school with drawings and observations about
our pumpkin. It ties so well with animal homes (would this really have
worked as a home for Mousekin?), habitats, food chains, and
decomposition.

It's great...I've built a whole pumpkin unit around this activity!! The
only catch is that Mouskin's Golden House by Edna Miller is no longer in
print and is hard to find (expensive when you find it!). I lucked
across my copy at a thrift store. Our school library had it and didn't
know it was a collector's item. Ebay often has copies of it for sale.

Edna Miller wrote a whole series about Mousekin and almost all of them
tie to one or more of the above mentioned
curriculums! They are worth every penny!!