🎃 Pumpkins
I hope you enjoy the Pumpkins Unit Study Lesson Plan, here are some highlights:
Pumpkin Life Cycle Stem Craft
Pumpkin Life Cycle Printable Book
Dissect a Pumpkin
Pumpkin CVC Word Builder
Pumpkin Patch Sight Words
Pumpkin Seed Number Bonds
Pumpkin Story Problems
Painted Pumpkins
3D Beaded Pumpkins
Pumpkin Volcanos
Pumpkin Catapults
Build a Pumpkin Tower
Pumpkin Ten Frame Sensory Play
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Enjoy! Tiff
Pumpkins
Pumpkin Life Cycle STEM Craft
First, teach the six stages in the life cycle of a pumpkin with this six page + cover printable book. Students will read about each stage of the life cycle, trace the words and color the image.
Then students can apply what they learned with this fun STEM Craft. Cut out the pumpkin shapes and life cycles and glue them together in the correct sequence. During storytime, reinforce what was learned with From Seed to Pumpkin or read this first!
Dissect a Pumpkin
By: SciShow Kids
Perhaps the best way to learn about pumpkins is to take one apart! First, watch this great video by SciShow Kids. Then cut open your pumpkin and see what’s inside. We cut open two mini pumpkins so that the girls could each have their own pumpkin
We used these awesome FREE pumpkin seeds estimation worksheets by Math Geek Mama to measure our pumpkins and guess how many seeds they have. These are designed to use along with the How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? book.
We did this activity first, then dove right into the pumpkin volcano activity in the Science section. Just make sure to try to keep the hole in the pumpkins small so that the volcano is effective.
English Language Arts
Pumpkin CVC Word Builder
Celebrate fall with this tactile word building activity. Practice building CVC words with these fun printable pumpkins and wheelbarrow mat place mat. Includes a word families list to help reinforce rhyming skills. Perfect for building on early reading skills.
Pumpkin Patch Sight Words
Make teaching sight words as easy as picking a pumpkin. First, practice sight word recognition with these fun Pumpkin Patch Dab A Dot pages. Once your students are familiar with the words, have them practice building the words with the Pumpkin Patch Play Mat, Pumpkin Letters and Pumpkin Flash Cards. Then, assess and track your student's progress with the Pumpkin Flash Cards and tracking sheet.
Reading Lessons
There are only two resources I like to make sure I include on each week’s lesson plan, Prodigies Music (below) and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has thousands of 5 star reviews on Amazon for a reason. It’s an effective, no-prep way to teach reading. We are 40 or so lessons in and I can already see a huge difference, my daughter actually sounds out the words instead of guessing.
The lessons are short (15-20min), easy to grasp and sequential. The entire lesson is scripted and color coded so it’s fool proof, just read the words in pink. It also is designed for kids that don’t know their alphabet or letter sounds yet, so you can start right away. Their claim is that after completing all 100 lessons your child will be able to read at a 2nd grade level!
Math - Number Relationships
Pumpkin Number Bonds
By: Kindergarten Worksheets and Games
Practice addition facts with these fun no-prep worksheets! We used roasted pumpkin seeds for this fun math snack.
This was a great way to see which addition facts my daughter is already fluent in (can answer in 3 seconds with no counting). For the ones that she didn’t know we used the pumpkin seeds to help illustrate the concept.
When breaking down a number, we put the total number of seeds on the large pumpkin. Then we moved the seeds from the large pumpkin to the seed areas to show how the two numbers break up the whole.
Pumpkin Math - Less Than, Greater Than + Story Problems
Explore number relationships with these fun interactive math activities as you teach greater than, less than & equal to; and combinations of 10.
Includes instructional pages, tiered worksheets that get harder as your students progress, math center clip cards, play-doh mats and story problem cards.
Art and Music
Painted Pumpkins
My girls love to paint! Actually, any craft that is on the messy side is always a hit.
I saw these cute mini white pumpkins and thought they would be the perfect canvas for a Pumpkin week craft. We had fun painting the pumpkins and added some glitter at the end for that extra touch.
I have my system down for paint so it’s easy to set-up and clean. We use these awesome plastic trays from the Target dollar spot, paper plates and I keep baby wipes on hand to quickly wipe up any paint. We even have a paint bin and designated “paint dresses” since my little one doesn’t like wearing a smock.
Supplies: white pumpkins, tempura washable paint, baby wipes, paint brushes, tray, glitter.
3D Beaded Pumpkins
Work on fine motor skills while learning about 3D shapes with this fun beaded pumpkin craft. Love this no-prep, no mess, two supply craft!
This would make great table decor for your dinner table or Thanksgiving!
Supplies: approx. 130 orange pony beads, 4 orange and 1 green pipe cleaner
Prodigies Music
Do…Re…Mi…
We love Prodigies! Prodigies Music is simply an incredible curriculum for teaching music. Ages 2-5 is the critical time to develop a life-long sense of pitch. Their curriculum is designed to develop a sense of pitch with easy to use desk bells that don’t require any tuning. They also teach piano, recorder and ukulele. Their subscription includes everything you can think of 450+ videos, worksheets, free bell mats, sheet music all color coded so it’s super easy to learn. If you don’t have an instrument they have a bunch of rhythm focused content that doesn’t require an instrument.
They have a free trial and discounts for annual memberships! Great deal! You can even check out some of their videos for free on YouTube.
Science
Pumpkin Volcanos
By: Little Bins For Little Hands
This was our first time creating our own chemical reaction and I think we are going to have to do a lot more of these. I found this awesome science activity on my favorite science blog, Little Bins For Little Hands and knew we had to do it.
My girls loved choosing their color and pouring in the vinegar. My little scientists enjoyed this so much that I rinsed out the pumpkins and we did it a second time. The second time we experimented with adding two colors in one pumpkin and it was super fun to see all the foamy colors.
Supplies: mini pumpkins, tray, baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, dish soap.
Pumpkin Catapult Engineering Activity
Build your very own pumpkin catapult with just a few household supplies!
We’ve made these before when we first got the Awesome Engineering Activities For Kids book. But we thought we would experiment with a new version using larger craft sticks. We found that we were able to launch the pumpkins even farther with the larger sticks and we had a lot of fun decorating them too.
To make these, rubber band 5 craft sticks together on both ends. Then take the other two craft sticks and rubber band one end. Pry apart the two craft sticks and slide the stack of sticks in the middle. Then attach the spoon to top at the cross section and the bottom.
Supplies Per Catapult: 7 craft sticks, 5 rubber bands, spoon, stickers.
STEM Pumpkin Tower
Pumpkin tower challenge! Design and build your own pumpkin tower out of toothpicks and pumpkin candy. Learn basic engineering concepts and three dimensional shapes.
We used Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins and the candies fell apart so we were only able to make a cube. If we get a chance to do these again, I think I’m going to use these Sour Jelly Pumpkins.
Supplies: toothpicks, candied pumpkins
Sensory Play
Pumpkin Patch Ten Frames
I love mixing math with play! This fun pumpkin ten frame is an easy way to reinforce math concepts.
We had a blast playing “How Many Pumpkins”. We picked pumpkins and then used subtraction to figure out how many were left. Great way to visualize math equations.
I used left over green rice (here’s the recipe) from other bins, cut an egg crate into a ten frame and added some fun puzzle erasers (I got these from Daiso, if you have one near you). I finished the bin with some wooden town figurines, curled pipe cleaners, rocks, cups and wooden scoopers.
Filler: green rice and lentils.
Supplies: vegetable erasers, egg crate, pipe cleaners, river rocks, wooden town figurines, nesting cups, wooden scoops.
Pumpkin Harvest Sensory Play
I really wish you could smell this! Engage your sense of smell by adding harvest spice essential oils to your sensory bin. I found this awesome fall essential oil set and it took our pumpkin harvest bin to the next level. It comes with six awesome fragrances: coffee cake, pumpkin pie, gingerbread, cinnamon, harvest spice and apple cider.
I love how the dyed popcorn kernels turned out. I used this great recipe from Fun-A-Day that just uses vinegar, water and food coloring. My first try with the green didn’t work, so make sure you add enough food coloring.
Filler: green popcorn kernels
Supplies: plastic pumpkins, essential oils, mochi ice cream container, pipe cleaners, wooden scoops.
Physical Education
Pumpkin Workout
Get your heart rate up with this pumpkin acrostic poem workout! Do push-ups, squats, marching, planks, kicks, invent an exercise, and run.
Book List
Don’t have the budget or space to get more books? The library has been pretty great for us so far, but they are sometimes out of the more popular books. One place that you can always count on to find great books is Epic Books! Try Epic Basic for FREE! You can find awesome read to me books for free, Unlimited plan includes access to 40,000+ books!
Know of any other awesome Pumpkin themed resources? Please comment below!
Do you know anyone else that would enjoy these free weekly lesson plans? Get them on the list!
