A. Goofy Pumpkin Faces with a pumpkin inspired lunch
The characters in the story are Little Nell, BIG Mama, BIG Sarah and BIG Lizzie. It’s Halloween and the three brothers are looking for pumpkins to carve into pumpkins. Little Nell’s choice is seen by her sisters as very small and ugly. Not to be discouraged, little Nell enlists the help of the reindeer, bunny and bear cub and creates a special lantern jack that can proudly take her place on the porch. As BIG Mama says, there are pumpkins in all shapes and sizes!, a line that can also be reassuringly applied to children.
So this morning the guys sat down and made their own unique pumpkin faces.
1. Materials you will need
- -2 sheets of black cardboard
- -1 sheet of white cardboard
- -Orange color
- -Green color
- -Scissors
- -Glue stick
2. Instructions
1. Have your child cut a large pumpkin shape from white construction paper. In fact, my boys drew the pumpkin first with a pencil and then cut it out. Don’t throw away the leftovers because you will use them.
2. Paint the pumpkin orange. (Okay, as a side note, after completing this project I thought it would have been more fun to give each child yellow and red paint to mix and get their own orange color. It doesn’t just teach me how to mix and match different colors, it teaches me which I’m sure each child would come out with a different shade of orange, which makes each project more unique. This can also be applied to green paint to give each child blue and yellow and make them do it themselves.)
You can see how my boys are different from your painted pumpkins. My dad paints a thin, smooth coat. My youngest son paints everything thick and dark.
3. Take one of the white remains and paint it green. Allow the pumpkin and green remains to dry completely.
4. Cut out a mouth and pupils for the pumpkin with a piece of black cardboard and cut out 2 eyes and teeth for the pumpkin with the other white paper.
5. When the pumpkin is dry, glue it to the 2nd sheet of black cardboard. Then glue to mouth, teeth, eyes and pupils.
6. When the green paper residue is dry, cut a pumpkin stem and some grass for the underside of the paper. Then glue them to your side.
When we were all done, we placed the photos side by side and discussed the differences. One pumpkin is oddly shaped and looks like a jalapeño pepper, while the other is more oval. One has a small stalk, while the other has a huge stalk. One has straight rectangular teeth, while the other has sharp, irregular teeth. One has little grass while the other has a lot of grass. So many differences, but both beautiful and perfect works of art!
I have about 15 different pumpkin crafts that I would love to do this week… I wish we could get to them all, but I know we won’t.