Pumpkin Patch- Need: Paper bags (small), orange paint, green paint, masking tape, stuffing (newspaper/tissue), green yarn, diecut leaves.Give each child a bag and some stuffing and let them stuff their bag until almost full. Then twist off the top of the bag with masking tape, roll into a stem shape. Let children paint the bag orange and the stems green. Once dry, connect the pumpkins with green yarn and tie on a leaf; display around the room. Write each child's name on the leaf.

Handy Pumpkins-Need: Brown construction paper, orange and green paint. Have each child make a fist shape and then paint their knuckles orange. Let the child press the painted knuckles onto the paper. Add a thumbprint green stem onto each pumpkin. If desired add orange or green glitter if desired. Once dry, use green yarn pieces to connect the pumpkins, creating a vine effect.

Leaf Windsock-Take the children outside to collect fall leaves. Then once inside again, let the children glue their leaves onto white or colored paper (the longer type of paper). Once the glue has dried, laminate the papers. Then roll, lengthwise, into a cylinder shape and staple. Let the children choose what colors of crepe paper to attach to the bottom of the windsock. Punch two holes on each side of top of the windsock and then add yarn for a handle. Hang from the ceiling, near a window.

Pumpkin Blanket- This activity is used to follow up with the book: Pumpkin Blanket by Turney Zagwyn. After reading the story, take the children to a pumpkin farm (or hide some pumpkins outside for the children to "find") and let them each pick out a small pumpkin. Give each child two pieces of cotton squares (fairly large size). Let the children use fabric paints, felt, fabric remnants, rick rack, and buttons to decorate their square with. Write each child's name under his/her squares. (Blanket Idea adapted from Oct/Nov 1999 Mailbox). Let each child cover the pumpkin with their blanket squares to keep the pumpkin warm. After a few nights, sew all of the fabric squares together to create a quilt. If desired drape the big quilt over all of the pumpkins. Later on, place it on the rocking chair or in the language area.

Owls-(Idea apdated from Oct/Nov 1999 Mailbox Magazine). Need: Brown construction paper, black and white paint, sponges, cupcake liners, black buttons, yellow triangle paper shape. Let each child use small square sponges and sponge on white paint and black paint. Let Dry, then trace on an owl shape, cut out. Then let each child decorate his/her owl by adding cupcake liner eyes, paper triangle nose, and black button pupils.

Scarecrow Faces-Draw large circles from flesh colored paper. Model the language for the children to draw a scarecrow face. Let the child glue fall leaves around the face, to resemble hair/straw. If desired, let the child choose a colored hat or bow to place on their scarecrow person.

Leaf Prints-Let each child choose some fall leaves from outside. Place the leaves on a piece of brightly/dark colored piece of paper. Place in the sun, until the sun has faded the paper and created a leaf imprint. OR let the child place a piece of aluminum foil over a large leaf and press the foil, until the leaf imprint shows through. Then let the child glue his/her print onto a piece of paper. OR let the child lay his/her leaves onto a table. Tape a piece of paper over the leafs. Give the child red, yellow, green, orange, and brown crayons to rub over the leafs, creating leaf rubbings.

Pumpkin Pumpkin-After reading the book by Jeanne Titherington, try this sequencing art project. Make a pumpkin pocket by gluing/stapling two large pumpkin shapes together. Then glue on a long piece of green yarn. On small pieces of tagboard (doubled), let each child glue a seed, sprout, flower, green pumpkin, and then orange pumpkin. Glue or staple these flaps onto the green piece of yarn. Let the children retell the story by placing the flaps into the pumpkin, as they look at the book. This is an awesome idea that I saw somewhere!! I don't know where, it isn't my idea so if you know whose it is, please email me so I can give credit where credit is due!!

Pumpkin/Gourd Prints-Buy miniature pumpkins and gourds. Slice each in half, leaving stem attached to top piece. Use the top piece to make pumpkin and gourd prints all over the page.

Harvest Leaf Placemats-If your school's location provides for lots of fallen leaves from trees, gather a pile of leaves into a large pile in the schoolyard. Let each child take a turn "falling" into the leaves. As each child does, snap a photo of them doing this. Let each child have lots of turns! Then return inside with each child carrying a couple of chosen leaves. Give each child a piece of brown construction paper and help them to make leaf prints around the edges of the construction paper. To make a leaf print, lightly paint the underside of the leaf with paint and then press onto the paper. After desired number of prints is desired, let dry. Glue the picture onto the placemat and then laminate or cover with contac paper. Write a cute saying on it like: We love leaves, etc; and write Fall 1999. Send home to the parents as a gift. I did this activity on my last day with the kids (before my maternity leave). They absolutely loved it! We played in the leaves, raked them, up, took our pictures, and played some more! This has to be the most favorite activity of all!!!

Center Activities

Exploratory (Math/Science)

Pumpkin Exploration-Place a large pumpkin on the science/messy table, on which you have cut the top off, creating a lid. Let the children explore the inside textures of the pumpkin, by placing spoons, magnifying glasses, and cups in the messy tray. Place a sequence chart, showing the pumpkin, pumpkin innards, seeds, etc; above the activity.

Plant a pumkin-Let each child plant a pumpkin seed in a rubbermaid dishpan. This should result in growing one or two pumpkins. Let the children water the seeds, and seedling. Observe the changes in the pumpkin and refer back to Pumpkin, Pumpkin book. Once the pumpkin becomes too large for the pan, gently place the pumpkin on the outside of the pan, allowing the stem/vine to continue to grow. Once it has reached a good size for you, trim off and place on display.

Pumpkin Friend-After you have used your pumkin in exploration and used all of it's insides, you are left with the shell! If you don't want to carve it, try this: Place the top back on the pumpkin and use found materials to decorate a pumkin friend from it. Try using gourd slices, twigs, leaves, orange slices, pine tree bundles, cloves, pinecones, etc; Use toothpicks to "stick" items on the pumpkin. (Orange slices for ears, gourd slices for eyes, pinecone for nose, cloves for crooked smile, leaves/twigs for hair on top, etc;

Sensory Table-

Place green easter grass into the table and add lots of thematic items like: pumpkins, gourds, leaves, small scarecrows, etc;

Place rice and autumn colored and shaped macaroni into the table. Then add thematic items: scarecrow parts (doll sized overalls, shirt, pumpkin head, etc;)

I also use a pumpkin bucket filled with autumn colored macaroni in which tiny pumpkins are hidden. I place a scale on the exploratory table for the children to balance the pumpkins on.

Place large (sealed-glued and taped) ziploc bags full of raw pumpkin insides, canned pumpkin, orange paint, and water with orange sequin pumpkin shapes or leaf shaped confetti). Let children use fingers to explore this squishy wishy activity, without fear of getting anything on their hands. On the pumpkin bag, encourage children to write with fingers to make letters, numbers, shapes, etc;

Fine Motor

Pumpkin Playdoh-Make a batch of plain white playdoh, add food coloring, and add an entire container of pumpkin spice to the playdoh. Provide seasonal cutters and teach the children how to roll a ball to make a pumpkin. Provide miniature pie tins (such as those from Little Debbie's pecan pies), and model for the children how to make a pumpkin pie. If desired, children can sprinkle on orange glitter, for extra delight.

Harvest Pumpkin Necklaces-Okay I admit, this is one of those activities that you do a majority part of the work with!! Need: pumpkin face lollipop, minature hershey bars (the medium sized snack ones, not the little bitty ones), smarties, yarn. First take the lollipop and tie yarn around the neck of the lollipop(secure with glue-tacky craft glue). Second, glue on a hershey bar onto the stick part of the lollipop. Let this harden for a while. Then tie on smarties to the neck of the stick for arms, one on each side. Then tie on smarties for the legs, one on each child, still tying off around neck of lollipop (hiding yarn behind hershey bar). This is an activity on which I let the child help me make them a lollipop man. This is a perfect October gift/treat to send home with the children. They like to wear it and eat it!!!

Noodle Necklaces- I try to find the leaf and pumpkin colored noodles at the craft stores when they are in season. Give the children some yarn, plastic lacing needle, and shaped noodles to string. Or if these are not available to use, use a shaped hole punch and make small die cuts for the children to string.

Pumpkin Pouches-This is a hands on project on which the teacher will assist the child completely. First the teacher will prepare ahead of time..A pumpkin made from orange paper, a pumpkin made from clear vinyl or cold laminating film, and a plastic lacing needle with strong yarn. Punch holes around both pumpkins, (hold them together to insure matching holes on both parts). Remember to only punch holes around the sides and bottom of pumpkin, leaving a top gap so that the pouch can be filled with treats/candy. Then assist the child in lacing his/her pumpkin pouch, and tie off. Then modeling language, using pictures, let the child pick out a face for his pumkin. Each child will then use a black sharpie to "draw" the pumpkin face on, one step at a time. Give a choice between 2 sets of eyes shown on pictures, then assist child in drawing the eyes, etc; If you have a party, you can send home any treats in this pouch. You can even add a yarn strap to enable the pouch to be worn over the arm or around the neck.

Cognition

Pumpkin Sizing-Make pumpkin from increasing size from one pumpkin to the next. Let each child place them in order from biggest to smallest, and smallest to biggest. Good relational sizing.

Scarecrow matching- Make a scarecrow counting game by making a scarecrow face from tagboard, laminating, and writing a numeral on the scarecrow's hat. Cut a small milk carton in half and glue the scarecrow onto the front. Then make enough crows from colored tagboard to match the numbers listed on the scarecrows. Example, if you used up to number 5, you will need 15 scarecrows. Have the children trace the numeral on the hat with his/her finger. While tracing say the number, then count out crows until you reach the number. Place the crows in the milk carton, and continue until done.

Pumpkin number cards-Make orange pumpkins and glue onto tagboard, laminate, write numeral onto pumpkin card. Glue appropriate number of pumpkin seeds onto each card, let dry thoroughly and laminate. These are good for counting and numeral to amount matching. Good for number recognition.

Matching Pumpkin faces-Make several matching pumpkin faces from diecuts, and laminate. Place one set of faces onto a long tagboard strip. Under the strip place pieces of velcro. Encourage the child to match the pumpkin face cards to the correct pumpkin face on the strip.

Thematic Shape Matching-Make a wheel and divide the wheel into the desired number of parts. One slice of the circle, for each thematic word. Draw a picture of the word in the slice (ex. pumpkin, leaf, etc;) until the wheel is full. Then use clothespins and draw the matching shape for each onto a clothespin. Let the children match the coordinating clip to the coordinating slice on the wheel.

Language

Reading-Place several theme related books and story props into the language area, such as pumpkin, scarecrow puppets, etc; I place a dancing pumpkin which is easily made: You take a tongue depressor and attach a pumpkin face to it. Then add accordion legs and accordion arms. The children can make the pumpkin dance.

Pick a pumpkin-Create a pumpkin field on a bulletin board by using brown paper, twisted vines, and a white fence. Place scarecrows randomly, if desired. If you can find the fake pumpkins and gourds at the floral store, use them. If not, make these from die cuts. Velcro these onto the board. Let the children pick the pumpkins and gourds from the vine and sort them into baskets.

Scarecrow's Colored Pumpkins-I used a fabric scarecrow flag that a parent gave to me last year. I tacked him on the hands-on bulletin board along with lots of papertwist vines/leaves and placed the title: Picking Pumpkins. I then made colored diecuts and stapled them onto the board, attaching velcro. I made a second set of colored pumpkins, attached velcro and then placed them on top of the first set of colored pumpkins. This allows the children to match the colored pumpkins together.

Dress A scarecrow-Place a medium or large scarecrow (Or Very Large Doll) in your language area. Have the children dress the scarecrow using old clothes such as: hat, plaid shirt, overalls, etc;