Autumn Theme: Pumpkin Day!

We woke up on Wednesday morning to November's first rainy day! This was just the kind of cozy Autumn day we needed to inspire some great indoor play and exploring. Several week's ago we visited a local year-round farmer's market in our area and my little one picked out a couple of sugar pumpkins for our nature shelf. I already had big plans for these sweet little pumpkins and today was the day! Pumpkin Day!

This book has great illustrations and a lot of
great information about pumpkins! It inspired our
own pumpkin day today.

My son also loves reading and rereading
this book. It has gorgeous illustrations
and very simple language to introduce
the life cycle of a pumpkin.

We started with a really fun Table Time activity--hammering golf pegs into a pumpkin. I first saw this done in a pre-k classroom I substitute taught in before my son was born. The teacher did the activity using pushpins and rubber bands to create a "geo-pumpkin." This was a fabulous activity for older children and to make it more toddler-friendly, I used golf tees, plastic hammers and then introduced some yarn for weaving and wrapping around the pegs. While many of my Table Time activities are designed to be used independently or with minimal adult intervention, this is one that does require more active participation and support. My toddler LOVED it! In addition to being really fun, this activity also promotes fine and gross motor development and hand-eye coordination with hammering. Spacial-relational skills are developed as well as mathematical concepts when children explore geometric shapes with the yarn or rubber bands. Of course there is also scientific learning and language development as you talk about the explore the changes that occur in the pumpkin through hammering golf tees or inserting pushpins. And since no pumpkin goes to waste here, we brought it back out later to cut open, observe and explore from the inside out.

My two year old needed help to get each peg started You could assist alongside your little one(s) or pre-hammer holes for the pegs ahead of time.Plastic hammers were plenty strong enough to get the job done!

Later it was time to explore the inside of our pumpkins. I cut in half lengthwise and we talked about the seeds and pulp inside the pumpkin. I provided a couple of plastic forks for scooping out seeds.

He had a lot of fun transferring seeds from the tray back into the pumpkin halves! I predict a transfer tray activity with our seeds once they are dry...

I roasted our sugar pumpkins for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

 Later this afternoon we will be making pumpkin pie!

Meanwhile, my little one joined me in the kitchen with his step-stool at the sink to help rinse and wash the slimy seeds. This is a great sensory activity in and of itself! Once they are dry, we will use them for more sensory play. In addition to transferring activities, there are some great ideas presented here. And of course, you could also save dried seeds for planting in the Spring or for roasting and eating!

Pumpkin seed sensory play

Happy Pumpkin Day and as always, happy playing!