Mr. Tiffin and his students explore skip counting and estimation in a fun pumpkin-themed classroom experiment! This book makes a wonderful read-aloud companion to any math or science curriculum, and it’s a fun way to reinforce counting skills at home.
“How many seeds are in a pumpkin?” Mr. Tiffin asks his class as they gather around the big, medium, and small pumpkins on his desk. Robert, the biggest kid, guesses that the largest one has a million seeds; Elinor, sounding like she knows what she’s talking about, guesses the medium one has 500 seeds; and Anna, who likes even numbers better than odd ones, guesses that the little one has 22. Charlie, the smallest boy in the class, doesn’t have a guess.
Counting pumpkin seeds is messy business, but once the slimy job is done, to everyone’s surprise, the smallest pumpkin has the most seeds! As Charlie happily exclaims, “Small things have a lot going on inside of them.”
This fall and Halloween Alternative book can be used in speech therapy to target predicting. This book is also great for targeting superlative and comparative adjectives, as well as targeting /ch/, /ar/, /l/, /p/ and /k/ sound! Discover more of the speech and language teaching concepts for using How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? in speech therapy below:
Frequent Speech Sounds:
/ch/ initial
/ar/ medial
/l/ medial
/p/ initial and medial
/k/ medial
Themes:
pumpkins
fall
Halloween Alternative
counting
STEM
Book Details:
How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?
Key Teaching Concepts
complete episode
theme/message
sequencing
inferencing
social/emotional
predicting
counting
adjectives (superlative and comparative)
verbs (mental state)
steps to cut, extract, dry, tally, and total the pumpkin seeds
Charlie has been feeling insecure about his height and lining up to go into school each day. During science class, Charlie and the other students learn that size does not necessarily matter when they count up their pumpkin seeds and learn the smallest one has the most seeds inside. At the end, Charlie leads the way out of the school by lining up shortest to tallest, feeling better about his height.
adjectives (superlative and comparative)
verbs (mental state)
pumpkin facts
dialogue
How did Charlie feel about being the smallest in class every time?
Why do you think Robert said one million seeds for the largest and Ellinor said five hundred for the medium one?
What do you think Mr. Tiffin is thinking when Robert said that the big one “definitely” has the most?
Why would they want to count by tens, fives and twos?
Why do you think the twos club had more groups than the five and tens?
How does Molly feel when Robert says, “too bad for you?”
What do you think about Robert’s personality?
Why were the tens fastest to total up?
How does Robert feel now?
How can they tell next time which pumpkin has a lot of seeds?
How does Charlie feel about lining up now? Why?
Why do you think Charlie didn’t like lining up to go into school?
What do you think Charlie will ask to do with the pumpkins?
How many seeds do you think will be in each one?
How do you think they should count the seeds?
Which club do you think will have the most pairs/groups of twos, fives or tens?
How will they figure out the total number based on their pairs/groups?
Which one do you think will have the most?
If you are interested in using How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? and other fall-themed books in speech therapy, then check out these print-&-go cheat sheets. Perfect for when you don’t need a full book companion.
If you are interested in seeing other fall and Halloween Alternative books to use in therapy, then check out the Seasonal Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.
If you are interested in seeing other pumpkin books to use in therapy, then check out the Themed Key Teaching Points Book List for a printable copy.
