Pumpkin Art Activities

String Pumpkins
Art/Writing Do the following art project with the class, then have them each write how-to articles about the project using steps, flow charts and/or diagrams. Materials: round balloons, white glue, orange embroidery thread, green thread, empty thread spools, green chenille stems, plastic gloves, plastic cup.

Step 1: Inflate a balloon and tie it closed. Working in a covered work space and wearing plastic gloves, squeeze glue onto the orange thread and tie it to the knot on the balloon.

Step 2: Wrap the glue-soaked thread around the balloon randomly until the balloon is completely covered.

Step 3: Wrap the chenille stem around the knot of the balloon.

Step 4: Set the balloon on a plastic cup to dry.

Step 5: Break the balloon and remove it.

Step 6: Glue the green spool to the top for a stem.

Personal Pumpkins
Art/Reading Share the following poem with your class. Then have a pumpkin-decorating party. Each child can bring in his or her own pumpkin, or you can look into getting pumpkins donated from a local farm market.

The Pumpkin Nobody Wanted – But Me

by Heidi Roemer

My pumpkin isn't pretty.
His orange skin is bumpy.
His left side's flat and yellow,
the other, bruised and lumpy.

He's splashed with muddy smudges.
No, my pumpkin isn't prim.
But he'll greet our trick-or-treaters
with a frightful, ghoulish grin!

Depending on the amount of time you have, and your students' ages, carve, paint or decorate the pumpkins with markers after asking the children to use very specific words to describe their pumpkins.

Eggcellent Pumpkins
Sequencing/Art Cut the cups off of a cardboard egg carton. Instruct students to glue two cups together to form a mini pumpkin. Paint it orange and let dry. Poke a small hole in the top of each with a pencil and insert green chenille sticks for stems. Use black markers to draw features. Have the students write the instructions for this activity in a flow chart.

A great fictional story is Pumpkin Town! Or, Nothing Is Better and Worse Than Pumpkins by Katie McKy (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, ISBN: 0-618-60569-X). After a pumpkin harvest, four brothers dispose of the leftover seeds. The wind picks up the seeds and sends them flying all over town. What happens next is exactly what students learned about planting seeds.