Autumn Across America

Internet Project   2006 - 2007

This project was begun and is hosted by Marci McGowan, a fellow NJ primary school teacher.  To view the entire project and other classes' submissions, click here.

Autumn is a beautiful time of year in New Jersey!

Our school, Town Center Elementary, is located in Plainsboro, New Jersey.  We are located in central New Jersey, just north of Princeton.

Our area experiences lots of signs of autumn! As the weather gets colder, pinecones drop, pumpkins grow, leaves change color and fall...

  We used these signs to learn about how to observe and record like scientists.

PUMPKINS

We are quite lucky to live near several pumpkin farms!  We each got a pumpkin from Grover's Farm.

First, we drew our pumpkins like an illustrator might, with backgrounds.  Then, we took a closer look with hand lenses.  We noticed a lot of detail in our pumpkins!  So we drew them again, this time like scientists - we drew all of the small details that we noticed, from scratches to stem direction, then we labeled our pumpkins.

At first, Siddharth drew his pumpkin like an illustrator might.  He added a background and even a character!  He drew his pumpkin very large.

The next day, we learned to record like scientists.  Siddharth drew and labeled his pumpkin to show exactly what it really looks like.

LEAVES

Next, we observed the leaves that are falling all over our area.  We collected leaves and observed them like scientists, recording what we noticed and labeling the parts.  Then we went a step further and compared the leaves to one another.

Shruti said: "My first leaf was very small.  It had more colors than my second leaf.  It also had five blades and my second leaf had one big blade.  They both had veins and a stem but the small leaf had lots of veins and the big leaf had just big ones.  The big leaf had a spot."

PINECONES

Now that we knew how to observe like scientists, we thought about what the parts of a pinecone might be called and what they might be for.  Do you know what a pinecone's function is?

Jimmy does!  He wrote "A pinecone holds seeds inside.  After they grow, the pinecone opens to let them out."

Our pinecone pictures were made collage style, like the author/illustrator we are studying - Eric Carle!

SHARING THROUGH KID PIX

The final step of our study was to share the scientific drawings and comparisons we had made by creating Kid Pix pictures on our computers.  Mrs. Berryman is teaching us to use Kid Pix in Computer class, so we tried it out back in our classroom!

Our Autumn Bookshelf

Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White and Megan Lloyd

Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by George Levenson and Shmuel Thaler

Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jean Titherington

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro and Loretta Krupinski

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman and S.D. Schindler

From Seed to Pumpkin by Jan Kottke

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Raccoons and Ripe Corn by Jim Arnosky

When Autumn Comes by Robert Maass

Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur and Leslie Evans

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia