Charlie is the smallest kid in his class. He is always put at the end of the class line because the children are sorted by size. This hurt my heart - I was the smallest kid in my class. Luckily Charlie has a very wise teacher. It is Halloween and Mr Tiffin brings three pumpkins into the classroom. Over several days he asks the class to think about how many seeds each pumpkin might contain. The children guess with all sorts of wild answers and of course they are sure the biggest pumpkin has the most seeds. Then Mr Tiffin cuts a circle in the top of each pumpkin and the kids scoop out the seeds. Overnight Mr Tiffin dries the seeds and the next day the counting begins.
Mr Tiffin is such a skilled teacher the children have no idea he has turned this into a maths lesson. How will they count all those seeds? By twos or groups of five or perhaps groups of ten! I am sure every kid is still convinced the biggest pumpkin will 'win' but of course they are in for a surprise.
That is not the end of this lesson, though. The smallest pumpkin has the most seeds and that was the one counted by Charlie's group. Mr Tiffin knows it is also time to change the way the class line up - now it can be smallest to tallest - I love the smile on Charlie's face.
"Size alone is not the most important thing." Here is the illustration from the beginning of the book.
Bookseller blurb: 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."
In some ways I feel bad sharing books here on my blog that are out of print but on the other hand I do hope they might inspire you to check out your school or local public library. How many seeds in a pumpkin was published in 2007 and so I was surprised to discover it is still available to buy but it is very very, expensive here in Australia. It is a book that is worth hunting out either for Halloween when you might be thinking about pumpkins or just as a terrific book to promote a conversation about maths or more importantly acceptance of difference so check out your library.
You can see a video of the book here.
I picked up this book from a pumpkin library display because I do love art by G Brian Karas. If you also want to talk about the idea of the different ways a class might line up for class, try to find the old Australian junior novel - First at Last by Julia McClelland illustrated by Ann James.
There are three books in the series by Margaret McNamara and G Brian Karas featuring the wonderful teacher Mr Tiffin:
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