Planting a Pumpkin

This is a very relaxing and gentle way to connect with someone you love.  This is great just before bedtime or during quiet times of day.  The original idea of "Planting a Flower" came from Mary Jo Huff at a recent early childhood conference.  My daughter and my students love it so much that I wanted to create a seasonal version to use since we are currently headed into the colder months here in Indiana.  So I adapted the original activity to make it "Planting a Pumpkin".  Here is how you do it:
1. Find a partner to play with you.
2. Turn so that you are facing your child's back.
3. Start in the lower lumbar portion of your child's back near the waist line.
4. Right on the spine you will use your index finger to pretend to dig a hole in the dirt.
5. Next you will gently dot the same spot as you put a "seed" in the hole.
6. Once you've planted the seed you need to cover it up with dirt by using a sweeping motion as if to push dirt over the hole to keep the seeds safe.
7. Pat it down so the dirt stays in place by gently patting your child's lower back in the same spot.
8. Now you move up to their shoulders and gently rub in a circular motion with open hands as the "sun" shines on their shoulders to help the pumpkin seed grow.
9.  Next comes the "rain" in the form of your fingers wiggling and moving down their back from top to bottom.
10.  Now it begins to "thunder" as your hands gently pat the child on the back in a thundering pattern.
11.  The "lightening" moves down their back as you use the side of your hand to "slice" it down the back as lightening would across the sky.
12. As the storm passes and the sun begins to shine again a "sprout" begins to grow from the seed that was planted.  Use your finger to draw a pumpkin vine that loops around the child's back.
13.  Of course the vine also has large leaves that are drawn on the child's back with your finger.
14.  Finally, you draw a large round pumpkin on your child's back, "pick the pumpkin" by giving your child a big hug or even carrying them off to their bed so they can go to sleep.
***As you do the above activity be sure to talk your child through it and describe what you are doing***
Have fun! 

Pumpkin Crayons

My daughter wanted to do a fall craft today.  We looked on Pinterest for a fun activity.  The idea we found was for using old crayon pieces and melting them into heart shapes for Valentine's Day.  Since it is almost Halloween we decided to make ours into pumpkins. 

We chose to use mostly orange, yellow, green, brown, and red crayons.  We found that the older the crayons, the easier the paper wrapper came off.  We peeled as many as we needed and then broke them up into small pieces and placed them in the mini muffin tins.  The original idea suggested that you use a butcher knife and cutting board to make the pieces, but I wanted my daughter to do as much as she could to help and breaking them worked just fine.

You bake them in the oven for 15 minutes at 230 degrees.  I sat them in an old cookie sheet to make transferring them more smooth.  This is what they look like when they come out of the oven.  Try not to disturb them until they cool so that the colors don't mix.

Next, we popped them out of the muffin tins.  This was no easy task and I am sure there is a trick to it.  I will have to do  a little more research to see how to get them out with more ease.  They didn't take long to cool, maybe 15 minutes tops!

We used scrap paper to cut out stems and leaves.  The original idea we had was to use wiggle eyes and black paper to make them into jack-o-lanterns, but after peeling all the crayons my daughter was just about crafted out, so I wanted to keep it simple from there on out.  We used Elmer's Glue, but noticed that some of the stems and leaves popped off when we transferred them to another container.  If we do it again, we may try glue dots.

Here is our little pumpkin patch.  We noticed that some of the ones with more red in them looked like apples.  You could make apples by using more reds and pinks.  My daughter plans to take these to school next week to give away to her classmates.  Enjoy!

Showing Appreciation

Last week was Pastor Appreciation Sunday at our church.  I have been working with the children's Sunday School class this month on making a gift for our pastors to help show our appreciation for all they do. 

We made fall wreaths for each of them.  The children and adults traced their hands on colorful scrapbooking paper.  We cut out the hands and used markers to write the word "thank you" in many different languages on each hand.  We got the list of foreign languages off the internet.  The children had a great time learning to say thank you in so many different languages.  This was a fun activity that involved many different age groups!  We then took a piece of brown bulletin board paper and twisted it like a vine and made the base for the wreath out of that.  The hands were glued on and an beautiful wired ribbon was added.  Before giving the gifts, we added a tag that said, "No matter how you say it, we're thankful for you!"

Fall Greetings

Each day in our classroom as a part of our "Brain Smart Start" we share greetings.  Greetings offer a great opportunity for students to connect with one another and for teachers to connect with students in a fun and playful situation.  One of my students is the greeter each week and giving greetings is a part of our circle time routine in preschool.  Since it is now fall I recently added a few new greetings that I made up.  These have been a real hit! 

The Bushy Tail:  Two children simply turn around back to back and "shake their bushy tails" like a squirrel.  This is definately a class favorite and is sure to produce lots of fun and giggles!


The Rake: The greeter comes around to the back of their friend and gives them a gentle back scratch.  They love this one as well!


The Pumpkin Bump:   The two children stand side by side and gently bump hips with one another.  As an extension they could put their arms around one another for an added bit of connection.



The Spider:  This is simply when the greeter "crawls" their fingers up the arm of the recipiant in a ticklish manner like a spider would do.

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

One of my favorite fall stories is Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.  This imaginative story leads into so many fun activities for preschoolers!  The first day we read the story and spent some time exploring fresh and dried leaves.  We looked at the colors, shapes, and details of the leaves.  We listended to the dry leaves and imagined what pictures we could make with various leaves.
 It happened to be a beautiful fall day on Monday and the leaves covered the ground outside.  We took the children out and let them play in the leaves.  Before long they were working together to pile the leaves up so they could jump in them!  They had a ball playing in the leaves and finding other signs of fall!


1, 2, 3 Jump!




This little girl found a whole pocketfull of pine cones under a nearby tree!  She also noticed the sap coming out of the tree trunk and learned about it's sticky qualities as she explored!


One of our art activities this week is "leaf blowing".  I brought in a hair dryer and the kids helped me crumple up dried leaves.  We painted glue over a piece of paper and then dropped dried leaf pieces on top.  The best part was turning on the "wind" hair dryer and blowing the leaves all over the wet glue!  They loved being able to control the wind!