A Mommy Craft

While Eva was playing yesterday I whipped up these cute no-sew pumpkins using one of her old shirts.  I cut the sleeves off and used them to make the tall pumpkins and about 6 inches off the bottom of the shirt to make the short one.  I turned each tube inside out, gathered one end and tied it off.  Then I turned them right side out, stuffed them will poly-fill and then gathered and tied the tops off with green ribbon.  So easy and Eva loves them!

Pumpkin Seed Math & Paper Bag Pumpkin

I made this simple counting game using pumpkin seeds we had scooped out of our pumpkin earlier in the week and a pumpkin note pad.  I wrote the numbers 1-10 along with the words on ten sheets of pumpkin note paper.  Eva then had to count out the number of seeds for each pumpkin.  (Daddy helped!)

She did well with the lower numbers but then started grabbing handfuls of seeds and dumping them on the bigger numbers.  Daddy showed her how to count and take away the extras, something I wouldn't have thought of.  It's great having someone else around to put a different spin on an activity!

We also made a paper bag pumpkin.  To start we crumpled up some newspaper and stuffed it in the bag.

Then I tied off the top with some masking tape to make a stem.

Eva did an awesome job painting the pumpkin orange,

and the stem green.

When it's dry it will join our other pumpkins in our indoor patch.

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate

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

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But I don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun."

Then OOOOOOOO went the wind

and out went the light

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

-Author Unknown

Eva loves this poem so when I saw the book I had to pick it up for her.  We read it several times a day and today we made puppets to go along with it.  I cut out five pumpkins from orange card stock and Eva drew the faces on them.

When she was done I used packing tape to stick green craft sticks to the back of them.  Now we can act out the poem!

We also made a super simple pumpkin using a roll of toilet paper, a sheet of orange tissue paper and some green card stock.  First Eva wrapped the toilet paper in tissue paper tucking the ends into the roll.

Then we rolled up a piece of green card stock and pushed it into the roll too.

We added a leaf and then placed the pumpkin in our little indoor patch.

stART- Too Many Pumpkins

After our trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday we curled up with this pumpkin tale.  In the story Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins so when the pumpkin truck drops an enormous pumpkin in her yard she chooses to ignore it.  The next spring she discovers a big surprise- a yard full of pumpkins!  What ever will she do with so many pumpkins?  We loved reading to find out.  With pumpkin patches on our mind we set out to make one of our own.  On a sheet of white paper, Eva used her orange and green paint dabbers to make the pumpkins.

Then she added stems

and some vines.

Now she has a yard full of pumpkins just like Rebecca Estelle.

Pumpkin Farm and Pumpkin Cookies

The sun was shining and it was a gorgeous fall day so we headed to the pumpkin farm!  There were pumpkins everywhere!

Eva found the biggest one in the patch and it was heavy!

She also found some neat white pumpkins.

We picked out a bunch to take home.

Before heading out we stopped to visit some of the farm animals.  There were miniature donkeys, sheep, goats, deer and even some llamas.

Eva loved feeding the little goats but she kept a healthy distance from the rest of the animals.  We also discovered that her favorite zoo animals also live at the farm- guinea fowl- or as Eva calls them, noisy birds.

When we got home we whipped a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies using this recipe.  I substituted one cup of flour with whole wheat flour and the oil with apple sauce to make them a little healthier.  When we had mixed up all the batter, I scooped it onto the baking tray and Eva added chocolate chips to make jack-o-lantern faces.

They came out great and are very tasty!

Pumpkin Exploration Station

As you can see pumpkins are a big part of our calendar this month.  Each day Eva checks the pattern to see whether it will be a leaf day or a pumpkin day.  After putting the date on we sing our days of the week song and then do our poem of the month using the big stuffed pumpkin:

Pumpkin, pumpkin big and round

I'm glad you grow upon the ground

For if you grew up in a tree

You might fall and land on me! 

(the stuffed pumpkin bonks us on the head at the end- giggles all around!)

The sensory tub has been made a little spookier, filled with black beans; black and orange yarn pom poms; black, green, purple and orange sparkly pom poms and Halloween erasers.

This game allows Eva to practice her fine motor skills by pinching pom poms with tongs and placing them in a pumpkin ice cube tray.  She also gets to make patterns with the colors.

Using a bunch of plastic pumpkins, Eva is able to sort them according to size.  This is a favorite already!

Finally, I made a letter matching game by writing upper case and lower case letters on pumpkins left over from the calendar.  I also found stickers of things that start with the letters.

Eva has to find the letters that go together and the picture that starts with the letter.

She did great with it and when Daddy came down from work, she dragged him over to play it again with her.