It’s pumpkin time! October is an exciting time of the year: Sweater weather, all things Halloween, songs about wind and pumpkins and lots of talk about costumes and candy. And more than enough reasons to try Pumpkin Pour Painting if you’re looking for a fun, easy, open-ended and really engaging pumpkin project for your children!
Young children really relish the feedback they are getting from their senses, especially from their tactile sense. They like squishing finger paint in their hands, tearing papers, physically working with clay and mud – anything that’s “messy”, “drippy”, “sticky”, and “squishy” where they can manipulate materials and explore properties like texture, flexibility, fluidity. So… Pouring paint? Squeezing? Exploring gravity? Taking turns? Cooperating? Color mixing? Hand-eye coordination? Yes, please!
Materials:
- Pumpkins (one for each child or one for the group if you like your children to work collaboratively)
- Tempera paint
- Squeeze bottles (or any other kind of jars or cups that can hold paint)
Step 1: Pour paint
Supply your children with a basket of tempera paint in squeeze bottles. Let each child pick one color at a time. Show how to squeeze the bottle and watch as the paint slowly pours over the pumpkin and mixes in colorful swirls with all the other colors. The children said: “The colors are becoming friends!”. Collaborating on a project can lead to great discussions on friendship and sharing. Make sure to discuss a few sharing techniques, how we can ask each other kindly for turns with the colors, or set a timer to share, how to work out a trade or that it’s ok to say “I’m using this color right now, you can have it when I’m done!”.
Step 2: Let dry
Admire the happy faces, bright and beautiful colors and let your pumpkin(s) dry. Use them to decorate for Fall, Halloween or Thanksgiving!
Enjoy!
♥ Claudia.