Pumpkin Patch Classroom Door - freeschris10’s diary

A simple, festive way to make a pumpkin into a seasonal centerpiece.

Pumpkin Patch-Shaped Sticker Scenes. Have some fun this Thanksgiving with these kids sticker scenes. Let kids be creative at a Thanksgiving gathering or give them.

Creative Ideas For Your Classroom. Classroom Decorating. By Season. Winter Classroom Ideas; Spring Classroom Ideas.

Teaching Heart s Pumpkin Unit/ Theme Pumpkin Ideas, Lessons, Printables, and More Learning About Pumpkins. Learning about pumpkins is a great way to start.

Pumpkins Aplenty, Pumpkins Galore

for classroom use only; not for publication.

Vegetable, It s A Pumpkin Allan Fowler

Scarecrow s Pumpkin Patch Jana Dillon

vegetable related to the squash and belongs to the gourd family.

Many websites state that the pumpkin is actually a fruit, contrary

to what s stated in the Lasting Lesson s resource book. So you

- 30 pounds. Some can weigh up to 200 lbs.

orange, but many pumpkins are white, yellow or other colors.

rich source of vitamin A and potassium.

months for a pumpkin to reach maturity.

outer shells and course, stringy pulp. And their shells are more

durable than you think. I saw one roll off of a cart at

Wal-Mart this week and it just kind of bounced and rolled around on

the asphalt in the parking lot. It didn t even crack.

from Lasting Lessons Falling Into Colors. I copied

them onto orange construction paper, colored the vine and stem and

laminated it to hang in the classroom to review.

between pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns.

Pumpkin Fiesta: This book is covered in the second graders Trophies

Tomon created these vocabulary cards for the story.

Be sure to check the links at the bottom

on the Letter P or the short u sound. Provide each student

with an orange construction paper pumpkin outline. Have them

cut it out and then glue things to it that either begin with a p

or have the /u/ sound. Once they re finished and the glue has

dried, fold the pumpkin in half with the pictures to the inside to

form a booklet. Program the outside with a title such as My P

Booklet and the student s name.

Pumpkin Sequencing Cards: We use these in the pocketchart.

I have two different sets, one ends

that can be used for sequencing here:

Pumpkin Pointer: This is the pointer I made from a dowel and a

pencil topper. I buy the dowels at the craft store and my

husband cuts them in half for me. I buy the ones that are

about the same size around as a pencil. Then I top them with a

seasonal/thematic pencil topper or eraser. I use them during

instruction and the students use them to Read the Room.

jack-o-lantern activities to this page as well as regular pumpkin

activities since most pumpkins well, a lot of them anyway end up

smells really good, you ll need to remind your students not to taste

1 container 1 1/12 ounces pumpkin pie spice

Orange food coloring 2 parts yellow, 1 part red

Mix all of the ingredients together. Cook and stir over medium heat

until all lumps disappear. Knead the dough on a floured surface

until it is smooth. Store in an airtight container.

Center with small pie-type tins tins that pot pies come in work

really well for this and have your students create their own

pretend pumpkin pies. Make sure you show them how to pinch

around the edges to make their pie crusts. :

posted on the net, and I ve never used it. I have used a

non-cook type playdough recipe and just added the can of Pumpkin Pie

Spice. I think I d like this version better, because I m not

crazy about having to cook something if I don t have to. And

once the time is up that I want to use the playdough, I divide it up

into enough pieces for each student to have one and place it in a

ziplock bag. Then each student gets to take some of the

coloring to mine. The Pumpkin Pie Spice gives it a nice

to use for introducing/reinforcing large/small, short/tall,

yellow/green. You could do that by putting each line of the

poem on a sentence strip and then having a corresponding picture

card to go with it. a large pumpkin, a small pumpkin, a

short, pumpkin, a tall pumpkin, a yellow pumpkin, a green pumpkin,

and then lastly a picture with all combined

activity by making a second set of matching sentence strips.

After laminating, cut this second set into word cards.

Students match the words to the text in the poem. If you need

a picture, you can visit the Easter page

and see how I did an Easter poem using this strategy.

their Poetry Journals, you can have that last picture at the bottom

of the page for the students to color and/or have them illustrate

each line of the poem by drawing an appropriate pumpkin at the end

Don t forget to add all poems/songs you use to your students

Send home a construction paper pumpkin and have students disguise it

so that it won t be used to make a pumpkin pie. : They would

do this by creating a disguise for it so that it no longer resembled

a pumpkin. If you provide a model for them to look at before

sending theirs home with them, it might help them get some ideas to

You could also use this idea with the idea below in place of using

the construction paper pumpkin.

Fill a brown lunch sack 3/4 full with shredded newspaper.

Twist the neck of the bag shut and tie off with a green pipecleaner.

Have students paint the bottom part of the sack orange to make the

pumpkin. Have them paint the neck part of the sack green to

form the stem. Have them cut out big leaves from green

construction paper and thread one or two onto the green pipecleaner.

Form the left-over pipecleaner into a vine. Below is a

on a flat surface among fall leaves or green Easter grass.

You ll have your own little pumpkin patch. If desired, as time

gets closer to Halloween, you could pick the pumpkins from the patch

and have students paint on jack-o-lantern faces using black and

done MANY years ago and doesn t have the leaf/leaves on it.

1 foil baking cup liner cup cake liner

the bottom of the foil cup cake liner.

Mix in a small paper cup kitchen size : 1/4 C. of prepared

vanilla pudding, 1/4 t. pumpkin pie spice, and 1 T. canned

pumpkin. Stir and spoon into crust. Top with a spoon of cool

Project: Paint a white paperplate orange. Add a green

construction paper stem. Add facial features using black

construction paper or black paint.

first step, provide the students with an orange paperplate.

This is a good fine motor Center activity. Provide each

student with a pumpkin outline. Have them fill in the pumpkin

shape with bits of torn orange construction paper that has been

glued on. Then have them fill in the stem with green

the Song/Poetry Card that I created on my computer. It s

printed onto a piece of cardstock. The TA added the 5

pumpkins. Then it was laminated. We use it for group

readings of the poem. I can make do with these small

Song/Poetry Cards because I only teach to small groups at a time.

students are provided a similar page, but without the pumpkins.

They add their own pumpkins to the fence, then their page goes in

You can also create flannelboard pieces to do with the 5 Little

Pumpkins poem. Provide a fence and 5 pumpkins. The witch

Allow students to sponge paint 5 pumpkins onto a fence on a long

A few years ago, we did a Pumpkin study and this is the door that we

created to go with the unit. The crows have the 5 Little

Pumpkins poem in their beaks. The cornstalk is made from real

cornhusks from the grocery store. The witch and crows are

backed with small pieces of packing foam to make them stand out from

the black background. This was in our old building

Pumpkin: Use the pictures from the link below Life Cycle

printable to help create this activity. Have students color

and cut out the pictures and words, then sequence them on a strand

of green yarn. Have students paint two paperplates orange.

Staple them together with the painted side facing outwards leaving

an opening at the top. Add a green stem. Have

students stuff their pictures down into the pumpkin opening, leaving

some of the yarn hanging outside the pumpkin as the vine. As

the students start to pull the yarn from the pumpkin, the pictures

should emerge in correct sequential order. As they emerge, the

students should identify the stage of the life cycle of the pumpkin.

page for each student. Have them glue an Ellison die-cut poem

to the bottom of the page and add facial features including a

smile to the pumpkin s face. When dry, the page goes in their

Card that we created for this rhyme. I printed it onto

cardstock. I cut a sideways H in a die-cut pumpkin and glued

it onto the bottom of the page. Then the TA drew Peter s wife

in the window. I had one particular student that made me

open the window so that she could see his wife EVERY day that we did

this rhyme. If I tried to slip by her without doing it, she

rhyme printed onto a page and a pumpkin die-cut with the window

already cut in it. They glued it to their page then either

drew in a wife, or cut one from a magazine and glued her in the

window. These later went into their Poetry Journals.

is a picture of one of our math mats. I wanted something to

use with the pumpkin candy counters that I d bought, so I had the TA

make these mats. She enlarged the pumpkin leaf pattern that we

had and then copied it onto green construction paper. Then she

glued two to a page and added the plus sign in between them.

Last they were laminated. Now the students can use either

mini-pumpkin erasers as counters or those yummy little pumpkin

them like this for the addition problem 2 2, they would put 2

pumpkins on one leaf, then 2 pumpkins on the other leaf, then count

all the pumpkins to find their answer.

This is another math mat that I made on my computer. I printed

it onto cardstock and laminated it. You could also print them

onto paper and then mount the paper on construction paper before

laminating. It also goes with the pumpkin counters. You

went out and he had 2 pumpkins in his patch.

The next week when he went to the patch, he had 3 more.

How many pumpkins does he have now.

the total number of pumpkins on the mat

doesn t work on Sundays. When he left the pumpkin patch on

Saturday there were 6 pumpkins.

put 6 pumpkin counters in the field

When he came back to work on Monday, there were only 3 pumpkins left

how many pumpkins they removed so that only 3 were left

Teacher s Helper Seasonal Holiday Activities TEC1478

Materials October Monthly Activities

to the top of a page and then typed the song below it. The

students colored the picture then added it to their Poetry Journals.

Jack-o-lanterns: Paint two paperplates orange. Use

markers, crayons, paint, or black construction paper to add facial

features to one plate to form a jack-o-lantern. Staple the two

plates together with the paint to the outside, leaving the top side

open. Add a green stem handle that loops from the inside of

one paperplate to the other. Staple the handle to the

paperplates so that it will be secure. Students can use this

to trick-or-treat. If it s used to hold very much candy, you

might consider laminating the green handles before attaching them to

the plates. This will make it more durable and less likely to

Activity Book Frank Schaffer Publications FS-43503

Activity: Laminate pages of orange construction paper, then

use the Ellison machine to cut out pumpkins and/or jack-o-lanterns.

Place them in the pocketchart along with laminated number cards.

Students count the pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns and match with the

activity would be to place the cards in the pocketchart and have the

students add the correct number of pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns.

pumpkin leaves for this as well.

Pumpkin: This is a spin-off book from Brown Bear, Brown

Bear. I believe some of the other K teachers shared it

with me. We use Ellison die-cuts to illustrate it. The

students just have to glue the appropriate die-cut on each page and

add details. I ve adapted the version that was shared with me

that the original Brown Bear type format doesn t lend itself well to

allowing students to use picture cues, since the picture that goes

with the text is on the next page. So I started changing the

format so that the text and pictures are on the same page.

This helps those young or early emergent readers by providing the

picture cue and the matching text on the same page, and prevents

them from having to turn the page to see what picture is coming up

yellow pumpkin, what do you see.

jack-o-lantern, orange jack-o-lantern, what do you see.

trick-or-treaters looking at me.

this page, or add pictures of them dressed in their costumes, or

have them cut out pictures and glue to the page.

Magazine now Teacher s Helper Gr. 1 Sept/Oct 1989

Activities: You can use the Ellison pumpkin die-cuts to make

many, many activities. You can also use two different sized

pumpkin notepad shapes for these as well. Just cut out the

shapes or purchase the notepads and program them with:

letters students match the capital and lowercase letters

students count the dots and match to the correct numbers

program half the pumpkin with pumpkin seeds that you ve drawn on

with a Sharpie marker; they count the seeds and match to the correct

students count the stickers and match to the correct number

either pictures that are opposites or words that are opposites

two words that go together to form a compound words can use word

each pumpkin and have them sequence them in the correct order

word to the correct picture; or the word to the correct definition

use for math activities. Have the students estimate how many

seeds are in it, how much it weighs, and allow them to cut string to

show how big around they think it is. Also ask them if they

tub or sink to see if it will float, and check the students guesses

about the size with the real measurement. Afterwards, cut off

the top and allow them to clean out the inside and count the seeds.

Have them count the seeds into piles of 10 or 100, depending on the

students. Then carve the pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern and

have some type of pumpkin treat pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies,

pumpkin fluff, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, etc. Visit the

Wild About Watermelons. page to get more in-depth directions for

these activities. Just substitute the pumpkin for the

Center: Instead of carving a jack-o-lantern s face on a

pumpkin, allow the students to use washable markers to decorate a

face. After they re finished, provide them with a wet sponge

and the marker will wipe right off and the pumpkin will be ready for

the next artist. : The kids love doing this.

Once you ve removed the seeds from a pumpkin you can clean and wash

degrees. Wash seeds under warm water in colander. Mix

together in bowl; seeds, salt, oil. Spread seeds on cookie

sheet. Bake for 30 mins., or until golden brown and crispy.

Use spoon to stir seeds from time to time while baking. Serve

warm or cooled, or mix with other dried snack foods to make a trail

Own Holiday Books Teacher Created Materials 393

Seeds: I ve never tried this, but you could try planting some

of the pumpkin seeds that you remove from your pumpkin. Our

watermelon seeds came up, so maybe pumpkin seeds will also.

We also use watermelon seeds for counters with watermelon math

activities. I d think that you could use pumpkin seeds as

well. Wash them and lay them out in a single layer on

activities by purchasing small orange paperplates. Add a green

stem and maybe a leaf to them and program each pumpkin with a

number. Students count out the correct number of seeds on each

Counting Activity: If you visit

Victoria s pages you ll see a math activity using small plastic

jack-o-lanterns and popsicle sticks. She programmed each

jack-o-lantern with a number and students add that many popsicle

sticks to the jack-o-lantern. I adapted that idea to make it a

little more real, so I have my students count pieces of wrapped

candy into each jack-o-lantern to match the number. Sort of

like reverse trick-or-treating for them. :

to The Mailbox, check out the extenders for the months/years that

I ve listed. They have some great pumpkin patterns and other

Turn your classroom doorway into the entrance into a giant pumpkin.

Using orange bulletin board paper, make a giant pumpkin that

surrounds your classroom door. Cover the door with orange

paper as well. Last, add a giant green stem to the top.

Now you ll find out how Peter Pumpkin Eater s wife felt. :

Center: Provide students with a pumpkin outline, fabric

samples, and pinking shears. Have them use a green marker to

color the pumpkin s stem, then use the pinking shears to cut the

fabric swatches to cover the pumpkin. Have them glue the

swatches on the pumpkin to totally cover it, then trim off any

hanging over the edges. The pumpkins can be mounted on a

bulletin board with the caption: The Patchwork Pumpkin Patch

Cut out a large pumpkin from orange felt, a stem from green felt,

and different kinds of facial expressions from black felt. Put

all into a Center with a flannelboard for students to create their

book: Provide each student with a pumpkin shape book with the

text by drawing a big pumpkin on the page

with them as they complete each page.

various sizes and shapes to reinforce patterning. You can use

tall pumpkins, short pumpkins, scary jack-o-lanterns, cute

jack-o-lanterns, smiling jack-o-lanterns, frowning jack-o-lanterns,

pumpkins, leaves, fat pumpkins, thin pumpkins. If you laminate

the pictures, you can reuse them year to year. The students

can practice patterning with them in the pocketchart. They can

make up their own patterns, or you can provide cards programmed with

AB or ABC or AABB, etc. to direct them to which patterns you want

aren t at the creating stage yet, you can start a pattern in the

pocketchart and have them extend it using the pictures/shapes, or

you can provide the beginning of the pattern on a sentence strip and

insert it into the pocketchart. The students will then extend

the pattern that you ve created on the sentence strip.

aren t ready to even extend a pattern, you can provide a sentence

strip with a completed pattern on it. Place it in the

pocketchart and have the student reproduce the pattern in the row

laminate all materials so that they ll be reusable from year to

year. When storing them, plainly label them so that you ll

know what they are at a glance the next time you use them. I

keep all sizes of ziploc bags for storing pieces such as these.

Using the ideas above, you can also have students glue their

patterns on to sentence strips using non-reusable shapes. If

desired, you can staple the strip around their head to form a

students decide what kind of face they d like on their own

jack-o-lantern and graph the results. scary, cute, sad,

happy, toothless, smiling, frowning, etc.

House: Read this book, then have students help create a list

of animals that could possibly live inside a pumpkin. Then

transfer the activity into a pocketchart activity. Create a

sentence frame: A _______ could live in a pumpkin.

Provide students with either words/pictures for the answers that

they gave previously. Allow them the opportunity to insert the

words/picture cards into the frame and choral read the sentences.

If you create both words and pictures, then the students can insert

the words into the sentences then match the correct picture to the

Pumpkin: Place a large stemless pumpkin on a wall or bulletin

board at student level. Provide each student the opportunity

to be blindfolded and allowed the chance to place a green paper stem

on the pumpkin. Back the stem with tape so that it will

Place lots of different kinds of pumpkins and gourds in a Center

along with a magnifying glass for students to observe the

Potato: Play the Hot Potato game, but use a small pumpkin

instead. The students sit in a circle and pass the pumpkin

around while music plays. When the music stops, the child

holding the pumpkin goes to sit inside the circle. The last

person left outside the circle wins.

package of pumpkin cookie cutters at Dollar Tree a couple of years

ago. There are about 5 cutters to a pack. The cutters

are graduated in size. They are perfect for seriation.

They can be used alone or the students can use them with playdough

to cut out pumpkins and then sequence them according to size.

cutters, then you can also photocopy a pumpkin picture and enlarge

or shrink it to make 5 different sizes.

vine pretend to pick up a pumpkin

fine make gesture big and round

pick mine. point to you and me

to sing while using the life cycle of a pumpkin activity already

given where you pull the pictures from the pumpkin. You

might have to add the jack-o-lantern picture to the end.

together. Pour into graham cracker crust and chill for one

mix. Then add pumpkin to the mix. Mix together and pour

into an ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35

for baking the treat in an ungreased pan. Personally, I d

think that the pan needed to be greased.

Buy several small pumpkins and cut them in half. Let the

children dip the pumpkin halves in orange or fall colored paint to

make pumpkin prints. If the prints seem to come out gloppy,

try using less paint and/or resting the cut side of the pumpkin on

I ve made these two file folder activities to use with this unit.

In the first one, the students have to match the facial features.

And this is hard for some of my students. In the second

activity, they have to sequence the pumpkins in the correct order on

the vine. The pumpkins for this one are made from small

pumpkin shaped notepads. All materials are laminated. I

also make 2 of each activity so that I ll have one to send home in

Homework Totes, and one to keep in class.

This version of 5 Little Pumpkins is not the same one that we re use

to sitting on the fence. However, this is a delightful

little book. The pumpkins that you see in the picture show

through circles cut in each page. It would make a cute

flannelboard activity, as the text begins with 5 pumpkins that

quickly dwindle down to becoming 5 jack-o-lanterns.

graders and use to be on our state test we don t take it any more.

If you want to cook in your class, it s a great way to add in

literacy. Have your students read and follow a recipe to do

the cooking, then answer comprehension questions afterwards.

You can also have them sequence the steps using either numbers or

From Pumpkin to Pie sequencing

Go to Graphic Garden and click

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Education and Activity Resources

Thumbprint Pumpkin Patch Craft Kit makes fun crafts for preschoolers and toddlers as they first discover the fun of the pumpkin patch. You ll always find the perfect.

Pump up the curriculum with pumpkins. Jump into pumpkin facts and pumpkin lore. Try pumpkin science, pumpkin math, pumpkin writing Take a pumpkin to school.