I created this silly little jack-o-lantern on a whim this afternoon and paired it a few crackers and a bunch of apple slices as an afternoon snack for Miss G. Being that it was the first time I’d ever served her a jack-o-lantern made of cheese, I knew she’d really get a kick out of it, but she honestly thought it was the funniest, BEST thing EVER. Who knew a simple cheese snack could make someone’s day?
This little activity just came about organically. Gracen and I were scooping out the insides of a pumpkin and she began collecting all of the seeds and carefully placing them in a neat pile off to the side.
A couple of bowls, some “tools”, and a tray later, and she had herself her very own sorting station.
Though she could have collected the seeds much more quickly using her hands, she really liked the challenge of getting underneath the slippery little seeds and scooping them up into her spoons. Great sensory play and fine motor skill development all in one {totally unplanned} activity? Yes please.
She even took the fun one step further and sampled a raw, goop-covered seed. She slowly nodded her head and said, “Mmmmm… Yummy”, but her little scrunched nose and furrowed brow told me she felt otherwise. ☺
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Last year, we all carved our pumpkins together. And though Gracen had a blast scooping out pumpkin guck, sorting seeds, and watching the carving action, she didn’t really get to take part in decorating her own pumpkin.
So this year, we decided to switch it up a little. Brad and I still carved our pumpkins, but in order to let Gracen be fully in charge of decorating her very own garden-grown pumpkin, we set her up a little pumpkin painting station.
With a handful of brushes and little containers of purple, green, orange, black, and glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint, Grae got busy beautifying her pumpkin.
It was the best of both worlds, because not only did she get to decorate her pumpkin, but she also got to help us do all of the fun messy parts of carving ours.
After having her fill of icky gunk scooping, it was back to pumpkin painting. She covered the entire thing in a thick layer of paint and then we let it dry overnight.
The next day, we used a little trick I learned years and years ago and cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin (no need to mess with trying to get a lit candle in through the top – you simply set your candle down on a surface and place the pumpkin on top). Together, we scooped the insides out and used our apple corer to polka dot the pumpkin’s surface (which worked brilliantly, btw).
Gracen loves it. It glows just like Mama and Papa’s jack-o-lanterns do, and we were able to preserve almost all of her painting masterpiece.
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Here’s a new {Halloween-themed} felt board activity I whipped up for Miss G this afternoon while she napped. It was a super quick project and couldn’t have been more simple to put together.
All you need is some felt (I just use the cheap craft store stuff for felt board activities), a really good pair of scissors, and maybe some fabric glue if you want make your pumpkin stems green like I did.
I often cut out my shapes freehand, but since I wanted 3 distinctly different pumpkin shapes, today I quickly sketched them out first.
Next, I cut out my pumpkin shapes, as well as some green stems for the tops.
Using Aleene’s OK To Wash-It fabric glue, I attached the stems to the pumpkins and set them aside to dry. Of course, you could stitch them on or use regular craft glue for this job instead. Or, another thought…you could not attach them at all and let adding stems to the pumpkins be part of the designing process.
While the glue dried, I worked on cutting out some jack-o-lantern eyes, noses, and mouths. I did this freehand, making up the shapes as I went along. Folding the felt in half in order to make symmetrical noses and mouths / two eyes at once made the job a lot faster and easier.
When Grae woke up, she was super excited to find her new felt board jack-o-lanterns waiting for her and got to playing right away.
She designed and redesigned the jack-o-lanterns again and again, sometimes very cautiously and sometimes more abstractly. She even ended up using eyes as eyebrows and upside-down mouths as moustaches (two things I wouldn’t have thought of!)
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For an easy and inexpensive felt board DIY, click here.