Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

Theme: Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

Honey Pot is 2 years and 5 months old

Little M&M is 7 months old

A Visit To The Pumpkin Patch

We took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch to kick off this week’s theme!

Books

We borrowed Oh My, Pumpkin Pie and Pooh’s Pumpkin from the library this week. We enjoyed them both, and read them often throughout the week!

Knuckle Pumpkins

I found this idea on Pinterest. Unfortunately the original pinner didn't pin it properly so I’m not sure which blog the original comes from. First Honey Pot painted her knuckles orange.

Then she pressed it down onto the paper to make a pumpkin!

And finally we added green fingerprint stems.

Very cute craft!

Jack-O-Lantern Balloon Toss

I added some flour to the bottom of these balloons to weigh them down a bit, and drew jack-o-lantern faces on them.

Then Honey Pot and I took turns tossing them into a Halloween bowl.

It was a fun game. But of course, where do you think these balloons wound up later in the week?

 

Felt Board Jack-O-Lanterns

I created another set for our homemade felt board!

When Honey Pot woke up and saw them there, she got so very excited! We played with them right away.

I took the numbers back out and put one above each pumpkin. Throughout the week, as we played with these, I would ask her if she wanted pumpkin #1 or pumpkin #2, pointing to each number as I asked. And I would take the other.

These were such a huge hit!

Pumpkin Snack

I found a wonderful pumpkin dip recipe from a blog called Carolina Charm. So Honey Pot and I had some fun in the kitchen this week. We prepared the dip one morning, then let it chill for several hours. I cut up a couple apples, and let her stir them in lemon-lime soda to keep them from browning.

Then we cut open a small pumpkin and carved it. And we served the dip in it with apple slices and Nilla wafers. This was delicious!

Pumpkin Pulp Sensory Bag

While Honey Pot and I were busy in the kitchen, I gave the pumpkin pulp and seeds to Little M&M in a freezer bag. He seemed to enjoy it!

And since Honey Pot always enjoys exploring with her feet during sensory activities, I helped Little M&M to do so too!

Add a pumpkin to investigate:

Roll it around…

And you have a happy boy!

Pumpkin-Scented Playdough

We returned to the kitchen to whip up a batch of pumpkin-scented playdough, the recipe courtesy of a blog called The Studio. I measured out all of the ingredients ahead of time, and Honey Pot poured them all into the bowl and whisked them up.

Add some water:

And, very carefully, she helped me stir the pot over the stove while it thickened.

Knead the dough…

And finally, playtime! We began by making pumpkin shapes!

And adding vines out of chenille stems.

Then we went to her craft table and extended the fun with some playdough mats that I printed from Storytime and More. I didn’t laminate them, but instead I just stuck some con-tact paper over them. It worked really well!

Then we used her new playdough to make faces on the pumpkin shape. She squished, rolled, molded and cut to her delight.

And we rolled them into snakes and tried laying them out on the template.

She even got out her other homemade playdoughs to play some more!

Little M&M wanted to play too!

Jack-O-Lantern Sensory Bag

Another sensory bag for Little M&M, because it is so easy to prepare and keeps him so happy while I do big kid stuff with Honey Pot! I just squeezed some shaving cream into a freezer bag and tinted it orange. Then I drew a jack-o-lantern face onto another bag, and put it over the first bag. (Little M&M has two teeth now, so we don’t want him getting into this mixture!)

He had lots of fun playing with it and of course, putting it in his mouth.

Honey Pot tried showing him how to squish it with her hands.

But he didn't care to do that. So I found a way! While he was standing up at one of his toys, I placed it on top. He was so focused on using his hands to stand up that he couldn't put it in his mouth. Success!

Five Little Pumpkins Poem

While printing out the activities below, I recited this poem to Honey Pot:

Five Little Pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one says, "Oh my! it's getting late".

The second one says, "there are witches in the air".

The third one says, "But we don't care".

The fourth one says, "let's run and run and run".

The fifth one says, "I'm ready for fun!".

Then Ooooo went the wind and out went the lights,

and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

She enjoyed it so much that she had me repeat it a few times in a row! We went back to it a couple times throughout the week, and soon she was saying it with me!

Pumpkin Number Matching Puzzles

This printable came from a blog called Lesson Pix. I thought it would be a nice number review! Honey Pot started off well with the first three numbers while I cut out the rest.

Then as we were about to embark on six numbers at once, she did number one and lost interest. Ah, well. Win some, lose some!

Writing Practice

I found this in a large pack of free printables from 2 Teaching Mommies. I only recently introduced this type of activity to Honey Pot. I provided her with a small pencil, and asked her to lead the children to the pumpkin patch by tracing the line. She did it entirely by herself this time!

And I think she did quite well!

Pumpkin Seed Sensory Bin

Originally I tried giving Honey Pot the pumpkin innards as a sensory bin…but she didn’t really want to touch it…

So I picked out the seeds and cleaned them up for her to explore instead. There was just a bit of water on them when I gave them to her, which made them slippery and fun! I gave her two bowls and some utensils.

And she went to town! This activity kept her busy for a long time!

She dug her hands in again and again.

Decorating Pumpkins

Honey Pot will be Cinderella this year, so we had her paint Cinderella’s carriage. First she painted it blue, then added some glitter!

And then her Daddy carved out a door. It came out great!

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Autumn

Theme: Autumn

Honey Pot is 2 years and 5 months old

Little M&M is 7 months old

Books

We borrowed a few books from our library about autumn, and read them throughout the week. Here is what we got:

Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic – by Steven Schnur

Clifford The Big Red Dog: The Big Leaf Pile – by Josephine Page

Every Autumn Comes The Bear – by Jim Arnosky

Felt Board – Autumn Tree

I finally did it – I made a felt board! I just used a piece of flannel and a poster frame. The sheets of felt from Michaels stick well to it. So for our first felt activity, I cut out a bare tree and leaves in yellow, orange and red.

When Honey Pot woke up the next morning, she went right over to it and played with it.

“It’s a leaf!”

We returned to it throughout the week for random play, arranging the leaves in various ways.

Later in the week, we also used it for math practice! Keep scrolling to see how we did that!

Leaf Crowns

These are all over, but I found my inspiration from Heart Felt. First we went for a walk so that Honey Pot and I could gather some leaves.

And you never know when you’ll happen upon some alphabet practice! Look what she found on the street. She identified the ‘H’ and the ‘I’ perfectly.

When we got home we spread them out on her craft table, along with two strips of paper and some glue.

Honey Pot squeezed some glue out all over the paper.

Then she chose some leaves, and pressed them down onto the glue.

When they dried, we put them on and acted like royalty. Here is Edward the elephant modeling my crown…

And Honey Pot wearing hers:

The next day we took them back out again for more play. They had started to get crinkly and old so we threw them away after this.

Baby Play

I wanted Little M&M to experience our autumn theme too. But real leaves aren’t really safe for him, as he puts everything in his mouth. I have two strands of fake leaves that we use for seasonal décor, so I decided to break one apart for him. He enjoyed exploring this new texture in their fall hues.

And one thing I emphasize to Honey Pot is how some leaves fall off of the trees in autumn, so I threw them up in the air to fall on Little M&M too. lol.

Leaf Cookies

On Pinterest I had come across this fun project from Country Living, where you tint the cookie dough with fall colors and then piece the dough back together again. Honey Pot was a huge help cutting out the cookies into leaf shapes!

Here they are about to go into the oven. I’m afraid I forgot to take an after picture!

Shaving Cream Painting

I have seen this painting method all over, but take a look at this wonderful result from Little Wonders Days. First I cut out leaf shapes from cardstock, and squirted some paint into shaving cream.

Then Honey Pot swirled the paints around with a toothpick.

She placed a leaf into the paint…

And lifted it up…

Now this was my first shaving cream painting, so I was a little confused as to which gizmo to use to wipe the shaving cream away. We tried two methods: a sponge and then a food scraper. I love how the previous looks, but I’m fairly certain the latter is the way to go to get the marble look. Here though, the food scraper leaves aren't as vibrant, because those leaves went into the paint swirl second. Next time, I’ll do that first and I think we’ll get a great result as Little Wonders Days got!

And while you wait for your leaves to dry, feel free to stack up your supplies and “build a castle” because that seems to be the thing to do!

Leaf Banner

We wanted to put our pretty leaves on display, so I decided to make a banner out of it. We were able to add in some letter recognition and super fine motor skills too! First I wrote the letters in the word “AUTUMN” on the leaves. Then I let Honey Pot match up some letter cutouts onto their corresponding leaves. We identified each letter along the way.

Then I used a hole punch to make a hole in each leaf, and Honey Pot threaded a piece of string through them. She did awesome!

Here it is on display on our fireplace. The letters are hard to see; I had let Honey Pot choose which color letters to use, and unfortunately she chose a light one! Still very cute, and now we can enjoy her craft all season long.

Felt Board – Autumn Tree Math

I cut out some numbers from felt, and made a counting game for Honey Pot’s felt board. I chose a number and placed it next to the bare tree. Then I asked her to identify the number, helping her with the ones she didn't know. And then she placed that number of leaves onto the tree.

Happy autumn!