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Pumpkin Passion

October 30, 2012 by notjustcute Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized 3 Comments

‘Tis the season of the Great Pumpkin!

I was putting together an activity to accompany the book The Garden That We Grew by Joan Holub when my memory flashed to a Pinterest pin I had seen which used a technique similar to this activity to blow up a balloon with a ghost face.  Spooky!  (Unfortunately I saw the pin, but didn’t actually pin it — so if you know the blog post I’m talking about, please let me know so I can link it here!)

I decided it would be fun to do something similar to create another Surprise Pumpkin!  I blew up the balloon part way and drew on the face with a Sharpie and let it dry overnight.  (Go easy on the ink!  When it contracts to its deflated size, the ink is so concentrated that it smudges off easily.)

I read the story and we talked about what a pumpkin seed needs in order to grow into a big pumpkin.  Great life science discussion!  Then I told them I had a different way to make a different kind of pumpkin grow.  Following the steps in this post, we used soda and vinegar instead of soil, water, and sunshine, and watched our balloon pumpkin grow!  We had some great scientific inquiry going on as we talked about what produced the gas that filled the balloon and experimented with ways to make the balloon bigger.  Loads of scientific fun!  (That’s right.  Scientific fun.  Nerds like myself use those words together!)

As we were doing it and discussing how real pumpkins take much longer to grow, it occurred to me that this activity would also go great with the book Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman (a Halloween favorite around here!).  In that book, the pumpkin grows from seed to ginormous pumpkin with Halloween “just hours away”.  How fun to use your own witch magic to make a pumpkin grow before your very eyes!  We had already read that book a few days before, so we simply made the connection.

Halloween is prime time for pumpkin play, but the fun can carry on all through the fall (thank goodness!).  Here are more ideas for pumpkin fun:

Large Group/Circle Time

Five Little Pumpkins

Surprise Paper Pumpkin

Pumpkin Syllable Drum and Rhythm Sticks

Who has the Pumpkin?

Science/Sensory

Pumpkin Sink or Float

Pumpkin Scoop

Pumpkin Seeds in the Sensory Bin

Creative

Bubble Painting Pumpkin Patch

Paper or Flannel Pumpkin Face

Snack Time

Five Ways to Serve Up a Pumpkin

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread Recipe

Pumpkin Treats for Fall

Surprisingly Simple Pumpkin Cookies

Fine Motor:

Use a mallet to hammer golf tees into a pumpkin!  (Bonus if you hollow it out later and use it as a pumpkin lantern!)

Are you passionate about pumpkins?  Find even more activities at Hands on as We Grow, 40 Activities Using Pumpkins for Kids!

 

*Post contains affiliate links that help fund Not Just Cute.

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Comments

  1. Victoria @ Mommy Marginalia says

    October 31, 2012 at 9:36 am

    We LOVED pounding golf tees into pumpkins this year! Originally planned it as an activity for a single morning, but it has turned into a progressive project over the last week with more and more tees being added!

    Reply
  2. Andrea Despain says

    November 7, 2012 at 6:13 pm

    totally did a pumpkin unit this year. Stumbled on this the weekend before. We ran out of time during preschool- but I still did it with my boys and they LOVED it. It was such a great activity since we had been doing the pumpkin life cycle. My oldest wanted to put a pumpkin seed in the bottle to show how pumpkins start. Had some great conversations on why the balloon filled up as well. Thanks for a great science activity!

    Reply

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  1. Thematic Units for the Preschool Classroom | Not Just CuteNot Just Cute says:
    January 24, 2014 at 9:19 am

    […] Pumpkins […]

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In early education, there is too much distance between what we know and what we do. I bridge the gaps that exist between academia, decision-makers, educators, and parents so that together, we can improve the quality of early education while also respecting and protecting the childhood experience.

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