Farmer Appreciation Day: Making Pumpkin Puree

When students decided they'd like to make their big pumpkin into pumpkin cookies, we asked a parent who grows pumpkins to share a "tried and true" recipe.  We read the recipe together as part of our text type study.  One of the ingredients in the recipe confused students - it called for "pumpkin puree" and most of us didn't know what that was.  After we figured out what the recipe was asking for, we decided that we would need to find out how to turn our pumpkin into puree.  We added "find out how to make pumpkin puree" to our Farmer Appreciation Day to do list and here's what we've done:

•  First, we researched how to make pumpkin puree online and read information/steps from a couple of different websites

• Next, we made teams to be in charge of different steps in the process - Cut & Clean, Cook & Scoop and Mix and Mash

• Finally, we got to work on actually making our very own pumpkin puree!

Making Pumpkin Puree

Team Cut & Clean

Students on this team worked together to cut the pumpkin into pieces and to clean out the seeds and strings. 

 Team Cook & Scoop

This team was in charge of loading pieces of pumpkin into baking trays, carrying them to the oven and helping me check the pumpkin as it cooked.  After the pumpkin was cooked, they scooped the soft cooked pumpkin into bowls.  

 Team Mix and Mash

Students on this team took the soft, cooked pumpkin and mixed it until it was nice and smooth. 

Reading Activity

As a follow-up activity, we talked about sequence in procedural texts and students read and sequenced the steps for making pumpkin puree.