It's Pumpkin Time!

Yes, fall is here and it's pumpkin time once again.  Fall is my favorite season.  I love the colors, the smells, the cooling down and shortening days as we head toward winter.  And, yes, I do love pumpkins!  It is always so much fun to do a pumpkin unit with the little sweeties in kindergarten.  These are my photos from last year.  I couldn't find the time to do much of anything but run my classroom last year, so blogging didn't even make it on my "to do" list.  I am so glad I took a few photos here and there, because the kiddos made some cute things.  I just love these punky pumpkins!  More about those later...

This was my big bulletin board with our class pumpkin patch.  Those pumpkins were made with paper bags and crumpled newspaper.  It is a fun and easy art project for little hands.  Just stuff the bag with a wad of newspaper.  Twist the top, paint, and add tape, pipe cleaners, or whatever you want to make the stem, vine and tendrils.  I have seen some very cute ones on Pinterest lately.

This photo is easier to see the final result.  We used tape and pipe cleaners to finish ours.  We did lots of observations about pumpkins during our studies.  We harvested them from our garden at school, measured them, compared them to apples, did a float/sink test, explored the insides, counted and baked the seeds, and cooked them!

We also visited a working farm with over 40 varieties of heirloom pumpkins.  It was so much fun!  And of course, we wrote about pumpkins too!

(My pumpkin is...  big and heavy.)

(My pumpkin is... green and orange!)

Yes, we had pumpkin fun in my classroom last year!  We did lots of centers and learning activities related to our theme.  But my favorite art project were these fun and funky jack-o-lanterns for Halloween!  Inspired by the many I saw on Pinterest, I showed my kids some pictures and they painted the pumpkin independently.  Then I helped them by drawing the shapes they wanted for eyes, noses, and mouths for them to cut out.  It worked really well!

They were absolutely adorable!  Our room looked very festive for Halloween.  So, if you are planning to do some pumpkin activities this year, I have a couple things to share with you.  The little half page writing prompt for a pumpkin observation is yours if you want it!  Just click on the image below to go get it.  You can download it from my Google docs.

And....  this is the prompt page I give my kids the day after we visit the farm.  It is on my TpT store if you want to go get it.  There is one that says farm and one that says pumpkin patch.  Please consider following me on TpT for more freebies and early bird discounts on new products.  Hope you enjoy these little goodies.

Hope your fall is going well and these freebies make your life a little easier!
Happy fall and
happy teaching!