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Students Love Pumpkin Lessons In October
Over the years, I taught more than 600 students about pumpkins!
My pumpkin unit in the garden club was one of the students’ favorites. I think this was because we always did something fun with this fall fruit!
Yes, pumpkins are fruits! They have seeds inside and that is the very definition of a fruit. Pumpkins are also a great example of the annual life cycle of plants, as they go from seed to seed in one growing season. This means they start as seeds and produce seeds by the end of their life cycle which takes place from spring to fall.
Virtually every child in the United States knows what pumpkins are! They are a festive decoration for Halloween, fun to decorate and carve. Some lucky kids even get to go into a pumpkin patch to pick their own!
Schools and communities hold pumpkin fests and weigh-ins, decorating contests, and guess the weight of some of the giant varieties. Houses adorn porches aglow with grinning orange jack o’lanterns carved from the fall fruit.
So when I was coming up with fall topics for the garden club, choosing pumpkins was a no-brainer! My…
