What Happens at Gramma's….

October 26, 2009

Today I carried a carving knife into an elementary school without challenge.

But it was pumpkin carving day for my granddaughter, Mikayla’s, kindergarten…

Mom and Kayla

…and I had a pumpkin slung under one arm so I passed without a body cavity search or a visit by Cary’s Finest.  Whew!

Now it may seem to you (as it did to me before my experience today) that carving knives and kindergarteners don’t go together.  I mean, seriously?

But I was pleasantly surprised at the respect the kids showed for the sharp knives…and their ability to alter finger attachments.  Most were more than happy to let the adults wield the deadly instruments (with a few Freddy Krueger wanna-be’s, of course, who were duly threatened and told to “sit on your bottom”!).

And most parents looked scared within an inch of their lives to be actually HOLDING a huge knife within 5 feet of someone else’s child.  Yikes!  (If I chop off my own child’s finger, it’s bad enough…but having a knife around someone else’s child??!?)

Making the eyelashes...

Yet we made it through a very fun and entertaining morning with the kids.  In groups of three, they drew pictures of what they wanted their pumpkin to look like.  Then, one of the kids drew the image….or some facsimile thereof…of the drawing that was decided was “the one” onto the pumpkin.

And then we got down to the good stuff.  The goop.  The seeds.  The slimy, yucky mess of it all. Woo-hoo!  I’ve never seen such faces.  It was great!  LOL!

And just to make it all legal and tidy, we had MATH assignments to do…

1. measure the pumpkin with a string and see how big around it is
2. weigh the pumpkin on a bathroom scale (The guesses ranged from 5 lbs to 43 lbs for a 3 lb pumpkin)
3. and count the pumpkin seeds.
   

   Kelly and Kayla

Seriously?

Count ALL the pumpkin seeds in the mess of slime?

Not.

We guesstimated 126 in our pumpkin.

Then Kelly spoiled it all for us by actually counting out 100 seeds (cheater!) which let us know our guesstimate was way off base.  So I guess there were about, say, 500 seeds in a 3 lb pumpkin (and yes, I’m showing off that we did actually weigh our pumpkin! and no, we still did not count the seeds!).

 

 

Kayla and her Twin

When it was time to go, the pumpkins went home with the parents, the kids went back to kindergarten…

…and plenty of pumpkin slime went home with me on the back of my hands.

Ewww…

   

Gramma Kat, Mikayla and Mom (Kelly)