10 Pumpkin Learning Activities with One Pumpkin
Pumpkin learning activities are a huge hit in our home. So I decided to do a bunch of activities with one pumpkin to keep costs low. You can do a whole week’s worth of activities with just one $2 pumpkin!
We had a fun and exciting week of learning with pumpkins! We covered nearly every subject and learned so much. If you do all 10 of these activities you will cover science, math, practical life skills, art, gross motor skills and even literacy as you are discussing lots of new vocabulary.
1. Color on pumpkin with dry erase marker – The marker did erase off of the pumpkin pretty easily when we just drew faces and simple designs. However, it was more difficult when he went crazy with the marker all over the pumpkin. I had to put some elbow grease into getting it off at that point. *Update: We later tried wet erase marker and it works very well! It wipes right off the pumpkin with a wet cloth.
2. Sink or float – Put the pumpkin in a bucket of water and see if it sinks or floats. You could very simply explain that pumpkins float because they are hollow inside. Even really big pumpkins will float!
3. Measure the pumpkin – Check out my post on Measuring Pumpkins for a more detailed explanation of this.
4. Count the lines on the pumpkin
5. Scoop out all the seeds – After you cut the pumpkin open, you can give your child a spoon or scrapers and have them scoop the pulp and seeds out into a bowl. Scooping is a practical life skill and is also great fine motor practice.
6. Count the seeds – There will probably be more seeds than your preschooler will have patience to count, but you can count out several groups of 10 seeds. We did 10 groups of 10 seeds to total 100.
7. Bake the seeds – Wash them, let them dry out a bit and then toss with olive and salt. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. There are so many differing instructions regarding baking pumpkin seeds, so feel free to do what you know or search for your own recipe.
8. Sprout pumpkin seeds – Get a napkin wet and wring it out so it is damp. Fold it up to fit inside a plastic sandwich bag. Place a couple of pumpkin seeds on the paper towel and then seal the bag up. I taped the bag to the window for sunlight. I can’t vouch for how well this works just yet. Ours still haven’t sprouted, but it’s only been a couple of days. I’ve heard pumpkin seeds can take while to sprout. I will report back.
9. Make artwork with pumpkin seeds – I had Evan paint a bunch of the seeds orange. The best way I found to do this was to stick the seeds to a tape loop and paint the tops (as shown in the photo below). Once they were dry, he glued them to a pumpkin template I printed out. You can find these by searching for pumpkin templates on Google.
10. Smash the pumpkin – I let Evan take the pumpkin outside and throw it around until it was smashed to smithereens. 🙂
We had such a great time with one small pumpkin and Evan learned so much! Do you have any great pumpkin learning activities to share? I would love it if you would share them in the comments!
For more fall fun check out my fall themed Pinterest board below.
Follow Mom Inspired Life’s board Fall Theme for Preschoolers on Pinterest.