Pumpkin season is the best season, right?! :) I absolutely love October. The leaves are changing colors, the pumpkin patches open, and there are just so many fun Holidays and activities to look forward to with your little ones! Instead of skipping straight to Halloween, we decided to do a couple weeks of pumpkin and fall play! Here is a little look at what you can expect to see from our pumpkin theme bundle!
Over these two weeks, we focused on the letter "E" and "H". For our letter and writing practice we are using the alphabet bundles that I have created, a combination of upper and lowercase letters. You can also add in the beginning sound "Find and Color" documents I created while working on your letters.
I created an apple theme bundle for you to download and do some or all of the activities with your littles! In the download, there is a "lesson plan" example and a template if you wish to change up your week! As a stay at home mom, the days get BUSY, so I enjoy having a loose idea of activities to have ready and pull out when we need some more structure!
Here is a look at some of the activities we did (download the file to see all the activities)!
Sensory and Hands-on Play: (more detailed directions on download)
Pumpkin patch playing + picking pumpkins - pumpkin patches are SO fun, there are tons of activities for your littles to engage in and picking out pumpkins to take home is always exciting!
Pumpkin painting - grab real or fake pumpkins and let your littles create!
Pumpkin volcanos - pumpkins + baking soda + vinegar = MAGIC!
Glow in the dark pumpkin play - blacklight play is always a blast! The boys used blacklight paint on their pumpkins, and then we added some neon orange painted chickpeas, some pumpkin loose parts from the dollar store and just explored in the dark!
Pumpkin soup - The book "Pumpkin Soup" is the perfect addition to pumpkin season and sensory play! We used orange water, colored rice for "salt" and pumpkin loose parts to create our own little pumpkin soup. Add cauldrons and scoops to mix and play!
Salt dough pumpkins - 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup of water is all you need to create some adorable baked pumpkins! Add your little's handprint for a fun memory to hang on to. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes! Your little can paint it when it cools or you can leave it as is!
Pumpkin letter hammering - we wrote out the alphabet with dry erase markers and used golf tees + toy hammers! We also incorporated our ABC find and fit letter puzzle from Domino and Juliette! They are food grade silicone and unbelievable quality. So fun to use as stamps, to create letters in your pancakes, water play, so many fun options!
Pumpkin slime - You need: 3 cups shaving cream, 1/2 cup elmer’s glue, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tbsp saline solution, food coloring or washable paint (we used orange) Directions: Mix all the ingredients together. Add more saline if it’s too sticky! Use pumpkin cookie cutters to make shapes, beads to make faces
Pumpkin pie playdough + playdough exploration - use our pumpkin pie recipe from the free bundle to create adorable pumpkin pies or just use some orange playdough and pumpkin cookie cutters or other fun loose parts to do some playdough exploration
Pumpkin sensory bins - we did a variety of bins! Colored chickpeas, rice, and orange lentils are perfect for pumpkin sensory bins. Add in some of the print offs from our download, some loose parts, and of course spoons, bowls, and any fun tools you have at home!
Some fun brands we used in our playdough + sensory play above are:
Nature Based Toys - pie molds, play fence
Chikadees Wooden Toys - wooden 20 frame tray
Smiling Tree Toys - alphabet wooden blocks
Kookaroo - wooden sensory tray + bowls and spoons!
++ our favorite Hobby Lobby (wooden pumpkin tray) and Dollar Tree finds (pumpkin loose parts, plastic pumpkin tray, cookie cutters, mini baskets)
Learning:
Here is a little look at some of the activities you will be able to do from the pumpkin bundle
Literacy activities includes: pre writing, letter recognition, beginning sounds, rhyming
Math: patterns, counting, number recognition, shapes, grouping/sorting
+++ more: life cycle, parts of a pumpkin, colors, emotions
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