Preschool Picasso: Pumpkins

It was time for October's Preschool Picasso! Instead of choosing a Halloween theme or a monster theme, I chose the more basic theme of pumpkins. It was easy to settle on this theme once I seen all the possible crafts I could present to the group on pumpkins. 

For this one, I wanted some extra sensory ideas and for some more adventuresome crafts. Overall, it was a success and I would do these two crafts again, but would make sure I had more prep time for each craft. 

I started off our pumpkin Preschool Picasso by reading Pumpkin Town! by Katie McKy. This is the one group I have who are old enough to handle a longer story. I think the group was very attentive due to the colorful and unique illustrations by Pablo Bernaconi. The silliness of an overload of pumpkins kept their attention throughout the whole book. I also liked how this book mentioned pumpkin seeds since we would be getting creative with them for our crafts. 

After we found out what happened to the town who had an overabundance of pumpkins, we started our crafts.

Our first craft was a homemade play dough pumpkin. I explained to parents that the dough was edible in case one of the kids accidentally put some in their mouths and that the craft is more of an activity and that since it is made out of pumpkin puree, it won't last forever. It seemed like the parents appreciated a more unique craft and the kids had fun exploring the textures and scents of their art. Corn starch, canned pumpkin, and pumpkin spice was used to make the play dough. I did have to add some flour we had last minute because it wasn't dry enough. The group had sticks from branches outside, green pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and black beans to make their pumpkin faces. 

I was able to keep my pumpkin for three days before I thought it best to throw it out. 

For our last craft, we made a pumpkin seed craft. The day before, I dyed and dried our pumpkin seeds and printed out some pumpkin outlines on construction paper. I opted out of using paint since the seeds wouldn't have been dried in time to do some gluing. 

The hardest part about the dough for the first craft was worrying that it wouldn't turn out just right since I made it the night before and that it might dry out or I would have to start over.

The hardest part about the pumpkin seeds craft was that it took the seeds extra long to dry and longer than anticipated to soak to get the color to be somewhat satisfying.

I think the group enjoyed their crafts and there was a lot of sensory learning with both of them, but I would say these two crafts have been the most hassle out of all the crafts I did for Preschool Picasso.  

This was definitely a learning experience for both me and the kids.