Here’s an easy way to review shapes and create a super cute pumpkin shapes craft and banner for your bulletin board for October. The pumpkin shape craft is super easy to create and the pumpkin patch banner is FREE. Keep reading to find out how I did it and grab your FREE banner at the end.
The Pumpkins For Your Pumpkin Patch
There’s really not much to this activity. The biggest amount of prep for you will be free-hand drawing different shaped pumpkin heads, eyes, noses and mouths. Here’s the materials you will need:
- Different shades of orange cardstock. One per student (I prefer to use Astrobrights, but you do you!)
- Black, white and green card stock
- Glue and scissors for each child
- Free Banner (Downloadable when you sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of this post.)
- Twine and clothespins
Prepping The Pumpkins
The greatest amount of prep work for you will be freehand drawing different shapes on paper. I’m not much on ‘crafts’ being all the same, so I’m always freehand drawing any pieces I need kids to cut. Because we are reviewing shapes, for this project my pumpkin heads will not only be different shades of orange/golden rod but the heads will all be different shapes as well. Make some squares, rectangles, rounded triangles, ovals, circles and even hexagons (I give those to my most advancted cutters.)
Next do the same thing for the white part of their eyes. Make squares, ovals, circle and rectangel shapes (2 of each). The pupil (black) parts I make all circles.
The noses are all different shapes like the eyes.
And the mouths are elongated ovals, crescent/hemishere type shapes or rectangles.
I do not draw out the teeth.
Step By Step
At this point in kindergarten, my students have been in school 18 days. That is not a long time to have skills built for following directions, so I find if I break things down step-by-step, we can accomplish almost anything. So here’s how I do it:
Everyone comes to the floor. I demonstrate (as I have done every day for 18 days) how to hold sciccors, where to put their fingers, how to keep their arm next to their body . . . you know the routine . . . as I cut out my pumpkin head. I tell them that they will cut out their head, write their name on one side of the cut out, put their scraps in recycling, and then return to the carpet so I can tell them next step.
When all of them have done that, I go onto the next step, cutting out the eyes. Again, I demonstrate how to cut the two pieces to separate them and how they will cut the eyes out, but not to glue them yet, set them on their head, take care of the scraps then come back to the floor for their next step. And so on and so on and so on . . . because let’s face it, even though this is a very simple project, they are still learning and they need babysteps to go through each and every step. I want them to enjoy the process and feel successful, so we take the time to do it right.
Get Your Pumpkin Patch Bulletin Board Ready
Once all the pumpkins are done, it’s just a matter of putting them on your bulletin board. I don’t have a bulletin board, but by using some command hooks, twine and clothespins, I can make a pretty nice display on the wall outside my classroom.
Download the FREE ‘Welcome To Our Pumpkin Patch Banner.’ Then, I use 5 different shades of cardstock to print the letters on but again, you do you. Once you have them printed, just cut them out ,and put the letters in order to make your banner. It’s easy peasy.
All Things Pumpkin
If you’re looking for even more pumpkin fun, please make sure you check out all my pumpkin favorites. Just click on the picture below.
You’ll find a HUGE selection of my favorite pumpkin favorites for Math, ELA and a few just for fun! Stop up today!
Grab It For Yourself
If you’d like copy of this Welcome To Our Pumpkin Patch Banner, just enter you email below to join my mailing list and I’ll send it to you for free.
Pin This Pumpkin Patch Idea
If you enjoyed this blog post, please consider pinning it so others might enjoy this resource. And for other free banners for other holidays, click HERE.
