4 pages.

This pumpkin slider "craftivity" is a fun way to review the various flat-shapes and their shape words.  You can make one and use as a teacher manipulative, or have all of your students make one.  It's a quick whole-group or individual assessment tool too.

5 pages.

Learn about pumpkins with this cute "craftivity." Completed projects look adorable twirling from the ceiling. Includes a graphing extension. The "Peekin'" portion of this FREEBIE is in my whopping 85-page  Life Cycle of a Pumpkin packet in my TpT shop. For your convenience, I've included a PREVIEW with the FREEBIE here.

1-2-3 Come Make A Pumpkin Craft With Me!

Hi Ho!  it’s pumpkin time don’t ya know! At least that’s what my Y5’s always told me when I asked them what month it was.  Children come up with the cutest things! One of my all-time favorite activities with my little "punkins" was "Peekin' In A Pumpkin".  We'd do this "craftivity" on the day that we carved our class pumpkin. 

So that I could orchestrate the lesson, I always sent a newsletter home asking for an adult volunteer to come in and do the honors.  My kiddo's would vote what kind of face they wanted, and could choose from a variety of shapes for the eyes and nose, as well as an emotion: happy, sad, scary.  I probably don't need to tell you that the "scary" pumpkin won 90% of the time.

I'd give everyone a chance to feel the pumpkin "goop." Surprisingly, some of my kiddo's never had this experience. I'd write their "describing" words on the board, and encouraged them not to repeat an answer that someone had already given.  A few wipes would expedite cleaning sticky fingers.

We'd don paint shirts and enjoy painting our paper plate pumpkins orange.  While they happily made their "mess-terpieces" my helper would wash the seeds, set some out to dry, so that each child got a scoopful to glue to the "inside" of their pumpkin. 

The rest were salted, drizzled with butter and then popped into the cafeteria oven, for later taste testing.  Every year about 50% of my Y5's liked pumpkin seeds and the other half didn't. Then we'd graph the results.  (Included in packet.)

Here's How To Make A Peekin' In A Pumpkin:

• I took 2 days to do this project. On the 1st day, have children paint their two paper plates orange.
• Before hand, cut a circle out of the center of one of the paper plates. 
• The seeds were washed and dried over night.  On the 2nd day, give a scoopful of pumpkin seeds to each child. If you can't carve pumpkins in your school, buy a package of them at the grocery store.
  
• Have them swirl some paint, mixed with Elmer’s glue, on the non-cut plate with a piece of yarn.
• Kiddo's arrange the yarn and pumpkin seeds on the plate to look like “pumpkin guts”.
• When the plates are dry, staple them together. Staple the cut out “window” plate on top of the “pumpkin gut” plate so that it is inverted and 3-dimensional.
• Insert a green rectangular strip of construction paper, punch a hole in it and tie a piece of yarn from it. 
• If you’d like to include a little rhyme time, run off the poem-stem on green construction paper.  You also need to make sure students have a square on their pumpkin, so I made one with “Peekin’ in a Pumpkin” written on it. Have students glue this to the back of their poem stem. Children write their name above or below.
  
• Students can make a Jack-O-Lantern face on the back of their pumpkin with a black marker. So that I could review shapes again, I pre-cut a variety of shapes of black construction paper, for children to choose, arrange and then glue to make the face.  If you're school is not into Halloween, and do a Harvest theme instead, simply leave the back of the pumpkins plain.  
• You don’t need a leaf, but if you have time, students can trace their hand (with their fingers spread) on green construction paper, cut out and glue next to their stem. 
• Another bit of pizzazz can be added, by punching a hole at the top of the plate, wrap a green pipe cleaner around a pencil and poke it through.  This is a quick way to reinforce the fact that pumpkins grow on vines and is wonderful fine-motor practice. 
  
• Suspend your pumpkins from the ceiling and watch them twirl in the breeze.

Click on the link to view/download the Peekin' In A Pumpkin craftivity.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  If you'd like to take a "peek" at the awesome educational things I spend way too much time pinning, click on the heart to the right of the blog.  I blog daily, so I hope you can pop back tomorrow to see the newest FREEBIES.

"The teacher who is indeed wise, does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom, but rather, leads you to the threshold of your mind." -Kahlil Gibran

2 pages.

31-pumpkin related words to help build your students' vocabularies and spelling abilities. Includes an answer key.

4 pages.

Mazes are wonderful higher-level thinking activities, that help exercise student brains.  They are nice to handout to "early finishers" or run some off and tuck in your sub folder.  There are 4 pumpkin mazes from easy (for PreK) to more difficult.

1-2-3 Come Study Shapes and Graphs With Me

Because I incorporated shapes into a themed picture, you are able to cover several standards, while students practice their graphing skills.  Besides the 4 seasonal graphs, there are answer keys included, so you have a sample to show students. Point to the various shapes on the sample, and have children identify them.

Use the discussion questions, to help kiddo's further understand data collection and analysis.  I tried to think of a variety of themed-shapes for fall, so there's an apple graph, a pumpkin graph, a leaf graph and a spider graph.

I design quite a bit from teacher requests, so if there's a theme you study in the fall, that you'd like a graph for, simply shoot me an e-mail and I'll see what I can whip together. diane@teachwithme.com

Click on the link to view/download the Shapely Fall Graphs packet.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  To ensure that "pinners" return to THIS blog article, click on the green title at the top; it will turn black.  Now click on the "Pin it" button located on my menu bar. 

If you'd like to take a look at all of the wonderful-educational items I pin, click on the heart button to the right of the blog.  I'm grateful to all of the teachers and parents out there who share their creativity, to help children have fun learning.

"The task of the modern educator, is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts." -C. S. Lewis

10 pages.

Help students practice counting, graphing, colors, identifying shapes, and addition + listening and following directions, with these 4 worksheets. Afterwards, have children analyze their graph, by asking them the questions from the discussion sheet. This is a special fall FREEBIE in my TpT shop.

16 pages.

Help students practice upper and lowercase letter recognition, with this fun, self-checking activity.  The alphabet cards, can also be used for a variety of other games. Packet includes: an idea sheet, a blank template to program with whatever, Kaboom cards for more games, + a personal "pumpkin pal" tally sheet, so children can keep track of their results and practice math skills too!

5 pages.

A quick, easy and fun way to help your students understand number sense is to practice 1-to-1 correspondence.  Pinching small manipulatives to place them onto the matching numbered pumpkin, is a great fine motor skill too! If you like these cards, be sure and check out the matching apple set.

1-2-3 Come Do Some Pumpkin Activities With Me!

A quick, easy and fun way to help little ones understand number sense, is to have them practice 1-to-1 correspondence. The numbered apple cards, were such a huge success, I decided to make some with pumpkins. With the repetition, children feel empowered, as they know what to do; you don't have to spend time explaining directions, and because there's a new theme, students' interest is still high.

I've included a set of 1-10 pumpkins in color, as well as a set in black and white. Print off, laminate and trim several sets of colored pumpkins.  Using small manipulatives such as mini-pom pom's, flat-backed jewels, or pony beads is great fine motor practice.You can run off the black line set and send home with students who need more help, or as a table top worksheet, have children draw X number of "seeds" to match the number on the pumpkin.

I've found that using a smaller card, instead of one with all 10 pumpkins on it, is less overwhelming for little ones, and keeps them from messing up their piles as they work. When a child completes a mat, they can get another one with higher numbers. You can also use a set of mats to review ordinal numbers.  Click on the link to view/download the 1-to-1 Correspondence Pumpkin cards.

Another quick and easy fall game, is Peek-A-Boo Pumpkins.  It took me an entire morning to design yesterday, but only half an hour to make the actual game, so little ones can play it.  You'll find it so worth your effort, as you can do lots of things with just the letter cards!  I've included a list of activities + Kaboom cards to play even more games. 

To make the Peek-A-Boo alphabet game, simply trace the pumpkin template onto orange construction paper and cut 4-6 pumpkins at a time.  Fold the pumpkins in half, and glue just the edge, to the left side of your yellow-construction paper cards, so that the pumpkin will flip open on both sides of the card, revealing the little ghost.  You can write the letters by hand, or use an extra set of pumpkin tiles and glue them to the front of the pumpkin.  I colored mine to add a bit more pizzazz. 

Children choose a card, and look at the letter on the front of the pumpkin.  They place the matching lowercase letter tile on the card, that they think will match the ghost hiding under the pumpkin.  They flip up the pumpkin to see if they are correct.

To add math practice to the activity, have children keep track of how many answers they get right, by making tally marks on their "pumpkin pal". When children have done all of the uppercase pumpkins, they can flip the cards over and do the lowercase ones on another day.  Click on the link to view/download The Peek-A-Boo Alphabet Pumpkin Game.

For a Pumpkin Word Find, click on the link. There's an alphabetical list of wonderful pumpkin words to increase your students' vocabularies. 

As a little something for "early finishers" print off some easy-to-difficult pumpkin mazes, by clicking on the link:  "A-maze-ing" Pumpkins. I hope YOUR "little punkins" enjoy these fall activities with a pumpkin theme.

Thanks for visiting today.  I blog daily; so I hope you can stop by tomorrow for the newest FREEBIES hot off the press.

Feel free to PIN away.  To ensure that "pinners" return to THIS blog article, click on the green title at the top; it will turn black, now click on the "Pin it" button on my menu bar.  If you'd like to take a peek at all of the awesome-educational items, I spend way too much time pinning, click on the heart to the right of the blog. I have an entire board of just pumpkin activities.

"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge, is the power of teaching." -Aristotle