Pppppp is for pumpkin painting, pouring, pounding, and playdough play

We have been doing lots of pumpkin exploration and our latest exploration includes pumpkin painting, pouring, pounding and playdough play….

Pumpkin Painting

We used the same pumpkins over several days for all of our play. We started with painting pumpkins on the first day…

The children found pumpkins and paint sitting out on one of our tables in the outdoor classroom.  We had gathered plenty of pumpkins for the purpose of exploration rather than to be used as a “take-home” type deal so the children were given lots of latitude to paint the pumpkins any way they wished…

The children painted all sides of the pumpkins. Some of the children painted faces but others preferred to paint designs or to explore a little color mixing on the pumpkins…

Gradually, more and more pumpkins made their way over to the painting table until every pumpkin had been beautiful decorated with paint…

Pumpkin Pounding

We used the same pumpkins (but on a different day) to explore pumpkin pounding…

These kids were crazy over pumpkin pounding – I mean they loved it! Absolutely loved it…

The children had to wear goggles if they wanted to pound the golf tees in the pumpkins and they had to wait until there was an open spot in order to take a turn.  But we had many other things in the classroom going on so the children did very well waiting for a spot to open up. Well, we did have to do a little negotiating along the way, but it was all worthwhile and everyone had plenty of time to take a turn at pumpkin pounding…

So what do you do once you have all of those golf tees in a pumpkin?  Hmmm, we have yet to figure that out but if we can’t pull them out then we will figure out something..

Pumpkin Playdough

On another day, we decorated our pumpkins with playdough…

Almost all of our store bought playdough colors are all mixed together now so we used it for one last time adding eyes, nose, mouth, ears and any other feature the children liked to our pumpkins…

The children kept adding to the pumpkins or taking the playdough off and starting over…

Pumpkin Pouring

Our pumpkin water play didn’t include the use of real pumpkins but instead we used our water bottles and our pumpkin water (red and yellow water mixed together)….

It is getting pretty cold outside now so this will be one of our last days for outdoor water play…

So the children mixed up the yellow and orange water to make pumpkin water and then enjoyed a little pumpkin water pouring…

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Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

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