Fun Day - Pumpkins

I wish I could say this Fun Day was a huge success, but really, we are still trying to figure out the best way to do it. It is only our second one and have decided it doesn't work really well to have everyone come to them. 17 people gets a bit chaotic. However, the kids did have a really good time and I think a lot of the activities were great and would work really well if you do them with a smaller group.

So I started with the story of Cinderella and had the kids act it out for me while I told a very simple version. I had basic costumes, to make it more fun - tie for the dad, costume jewelry for the ball, wand for the godfather, crown for prince, etc (our story varied a little with the kids we had :) And made a fun pumpkin carriage the kids thought was cool-

I talked about how Cinderella was still happy and nice to everyone even though people were mean to her. And that it was okay that she cried when she was sad she couldn't go to the ball.

Next we divided into stations and had us rotate through them. I had six stations, they were:

1. Seed counting- I had a Jack o' lantern face where they could put pumpkin seeds in the mouth for teeth and a page with simple math problems. Ex below "2+3=" (2 teeth in the top, 3 teeth in the bottom equals 5 teeth)              

At this station I also had Halloween pictures with a line on the side. They had to line up pumpkin seeds and measure how many seeds tall each picture was and fill in the worksheet

2. Painting station- They got to paint a brown lunch bag orange and green, stuff it and tie the top to make pumpkins

This station also had magic painting with a picture of a mouse, pumpkin and ragged girl. When they painted with their magic wand (sponge) it turned into a man, carriage and beautiful princess (hard to see in the pics) Noah thought this was so cool!

3. Playdough Pumpkins - I made some orange playdough and set out black beans, cookie cutters, and drew some Jack o'lantern faces. They could try to make the faces on the picture, or make up their own faces. This kept my kids entertained the entire day, plus the next!

4. Measuring/Estimate Station- I had yarn and a pumpkin. They needed to guess how big to cut it to fit around the pumpkin. Then they taped it to a paper marking if it was too big or too small. They also had to guess if the pumpkin would float and mark it on the worksheet.

At this station I also had a scale and lots of various items. They needed to guess if they thought the pumpkin was heavier than each thing. Then they got to weigh them and see if they were right, then mark them in order from lightest to heaviest on the worksheet.

5. Sensory tub-I had a tub filled with pasta noodles and Halloween objects hiding in them. They needed to find each item, then listed on the worksheet was different textures in graph form. They needed to mark if they thought it was bumpy, smooth, soft, squishy, etc

6. Last station was pumpkin drawing- I had pumpkins cut out then had instructions for them- A line down the pumpkin for every year they are (4 grooves if you're 4 years old); boy-triangle eyes, girl-circle eyes; how many letters are in your name=how many teeth, etc. Since I knew this wouldn't take long, I had a Clifford Halloween movie that had a pumpkin activity in their bonus features where they could make their own pumpkin. Choose a tall, regular or short pumpkin, what shapes eyes, nose, and mouth then see it light up. It's a fun little feature on the disk!

After everyone completed the stations we had pumpkin squares and watched a little Halloween movie. Despite a lot of noise, it was fun and I felt good about what I did.