Lesson Plan

Pumpkin Puzzler

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This Pumpkin Puzzler lesson plan also includes:

Light the Halloween festivities with an exercise that connects math, physical science, and language arts. After watching a demonstration of a burning candle, learners use division, multiplication, or algebra to determine how many boxes of candles they would need to light a jack-o-lantern for three weeks.

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Instructional Ideas
  • Use around Halloween, or take the Halloween element out of the word problem for a year-round activity
Classroom Considerations
  • Lesson requires lighting and observing a candle as it burns all the way down; if you don't want to include this part of the activity, find out how long an average candle would burn and provide that information to learners
  • Does not include an answer key, as there are multiple ways to solve the problem
Pros
  • Allows options to differentiate the activity by grade or skill level
  • Addresses multiple math and language arts standards
Cons
  • There is no worksheet or student-facing problem; you'll need to copy the problem onto the board or project it onto the board for learners to see