5 Little Pumpkins - Hands on

Halloween is fast approaching and I'm squeezing in some last minute activities.  I wanted to do the poem "5 Little Pumpkins" with the kids and I wanted it to be more hands-on than felt or paper pieces.  My lower kiddos really need the hands-on, "real" practice.

My original intention was to get some mini pumpkins for the kids to use but I couldn't find them in the grocery store this year.  I went to the farmer's market but I couldn't justify the price they wanted for the little ones.

Instead I ended up using a bag of clementines.  It was only about $4 for a bag and I got a couple of sets of Jack-o-lanterns out of it.  This way I could have a couple of children doing the poem at the same time.

Use a sharpie to add a face to the clementines.  Tip: Do this when they are warm.  The marker doesn't write well on cold clementines.  

I used a piece of wood for the "gate".  A large block from the block center would work too.

As I read the poem I had the children pick up each of the "Jack-o-Lanterns" in order.

5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate

The first one said "oh my it's getting late"

The second one said "there are witches in the air"

The third one said "but we don't care"

The forth one said "we are ready for some fun"

The fifth one said "let's run and run and run"

So ooooow went the wind and out went the lights.

And the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

At this point I push all the pumpkins off of the gate and have them roll on the ground.

After a few adult readings I found the children were able to do the poem on their own.  I placed all the materials in an accessible location for them to go to and act out. 

Free Pumpkin Counting Mat

Do you have children who need to work on their fine motor skills as well as counting and one-to-one correspondence?  Then this is the perfect activity for you.

Print out the colour version and laminate.  I printed out a few of them and ran a group activity.

I used play-dough and had the children roll ten small balls before we got started.  If you don't have play-dough, don't worry.  Use blocks, counters, or poker chips. 

I had each child roll a dice and then put that many balls on their pumpkin.  The first child to fill their pumpkin is the winner.

I also included a black and white version.  This one is great for putting letters, shapes or numbers on. Use a bingo dabber or crayons and dice that you can put what you want on them.

Click on the picture below to grab it for free.

Free pumpkin calendar numbers

October is just around the corner.  Are you ready?

If not, here's a little freebie to get you started.

Use the numbers on your calendar.

Use them in your math work stations by having the children put the numbers in order.

Make two copies and have the children play a memory game.

Happy Fall y'all blog hop

This hop is hosted by my friend Stephanie at Mrs. D's Corner!!!

I cannot believe that today is the first day of fall.  Where did the summer go?  I can't complain though.  It's been a beautiful September and it's still supposed to be beautiful this week.  

Because of the beautiful weather, the leaves really haven't started to change yet.  Even so, there are still signs of fall around.

After Halloween last year, I had my boys throw our pumpkins out into the back lot (we live in the country) and this is what happened.

A Pumpkin!

With no work on our part, we ended up with one small pumpkin.

It's just starting to turn orange.

I had never really examined a pumpkin plant before so we decided to do some investigating.

The first thing we noticed was that the pumpkin leaves were BIG.

And the stems are PRICKLY.

Who knew?

They were too prickly to pick so we decided to find some other leaves.   

We found a variety of leaves that were different sizes, shapes and colours.

We then decided to do some leaf rubbings.

We took the paper off our crayons.

We put one leaf at a time under white paper and rubbed the crayon across it.

This is great fine motor work. 

We got some stunning pictures.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I made a little word game freebie that is perfect for fall.

Head on over to my friend Dianna at Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching for more fall ideas and a freebie.

Pumpkin No Prep

My students are getting so excited about Halloween coming up.  I finished my Pumpkin No Prep just in time to practice some math skills before the big day.  They will be half-price until Sunday.

Peek at my Week

This is the last week of our Halloween activities.  On Wednesday we getting all the children together for special Halloween activities and a Halloween dance.  The highlight of the week will be trick or treating on Thursday.  Since many of our children have health issues that prevent them from going trick or treating in the evening, we do it at school during the day.  The children travel the hallways in costume and gather treats from staff.  We always have little toys for those children that can't eat.  I still haven't decided what I'm going to dress up as yet.

My newest unit to go with the book "The Little Old Lady who wasn't Afraid of Anything" by Linda Williams is finally up.  I didn't think I was going to get it done in time.