I wish I had seen these a few years back...

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/320037117243726053/



5th grade open house is Friday so we will see what this teacher does for parties...can't wait til for the last year of elementary school to be over!!

I suppose, but if I were allergic to pumpkin, I'd feel really uncomfortable with being asked to touch and decorate one.  I don't know if touching the skin could yield hives, but I would refuse to touch a thoroughly washed peanut, for instance.  I don't know enough about pumpkin allergy though, as it is extremely rare.  If nobody in the class has a pumpkin allergy, I'd see it as reasonable and acceptable since it's not being used with any intention for consumption.

But something to think about.

pumpkins NOT served as edible . . . so likely should not be an allergy issue so far as ANAPHYLAXIS, right?

Aren't pumpkins food, though?  Be careful with that one, as I know a person with adverse reactions to pumpkin and a few other squashes.  It's pretty rare though. 

Checked current availability of book mentioned in this thread earlier --

The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin

~~  seeing it readily available new and used at amazon . . . some years has been hard to get close in to Halloween, so plan ahead!

ETA -- There is a DVD now, if so inclined . . .

Bumping up with Halloween already on the horizon . . .

With the availability of white pumpkins now AND the Blue Hubbard squash (can be pumpkin shape) there is great opportunity to have fun activities and teach about diversity and acceptance.

Just more thoughts today.

.more as needed

.space for more content

Original thread, page 1:

Orig posted by ajasfolks2, 10/22/2007:

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Grade K has pumpkin day this coming Monday & I've agreed to help with the morning activites. 

Teacher is getting big pumpkin & kids will assist in design & carving.
(No one is allergic to pumpkin, to anyone's knowledge.)

I have agreed to come up with other activities and am hoping to do this with as little food as possible.  (Though, I will tell you that I *am* in charge of reg-sched snack that day, so I must deal with that as required:  PA/TNA to be worked around.  Acceptable food list in place.)

Am considering getting each child a teensy pumpkin to decorate (not cut open).  Probably decorate with stickers rather than markers due to mess factor & because only permanent markers really work best on pumpkins.  (Washables smear & rub off.)  Other ideas for decorations on pumpkins?  (Yarn & glue, make them hairy??)

I haven't explored locally to see if somewhere there are fake/plastic teensy pumpkins, which would be ideal.  Anyone seen these?


Know of a good pumpkin poem, rhyme, or kids' song to learn?  Can do coloring page with that too.


Anyway, I need some ideas.

And some patience.   

Follow on replies:

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Crayons work on on pumpkins- not as much of a mess factor as markers.

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Last year dd's class used felt that was already sticky on one side.  They cut out shapes for the face and stuck them on their pumpkins.

Pumpkin rhyme....5 little pumpkins....

http://www.dltk-teach.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.dltk-teach.com/minibooks/halloween/c-poem.gif

edited to add:
Darn link!  no space between hallow and een!  Copy, paste, and delete the space and the link will work.  For some reason, I can't fix the link. ugh.

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Pin the spider on the spiderweb (stole the info from about.com)

Draw, paint or otherwise color a background onto a corkboard or the like. Poster board works very well for this, and you can even buy it in Halloween party colors like orange or black. If you're on a tight budget, double up some flattened cardboard boxes. It's better if you draw the web and the kids draw the spiders. Alternatively, you could use colored paper cut-outs of the same spider shape over and over and let the participants add on googly eyes and macaroni. Macaroni shells, like gourds, are good for almost anything.

Make balls of Scotch tape and attach them to the backs of the spiders, and blindfold each child on his or her turn.

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foam craft pumpkins can be found here:

http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayProductPage?productNum=fl0580

they are carvable, but the sticker idea would work on these too.
-------------------------------------------------------

There are these pumpkins too from oriental trading:
http://www.orientaltrading.com/application?namespace=browse&origin=searchMain.jsp&event=link.itemDetails&demandPrefix=12&sku=48/4533&mode=Searching&erec=6&No=96&D=pumpkin&Ntt=pumpkin&Ntk=all&Dx=mode%252bmatchallpartial&Ntx=mode%252bmatchallpartial&N=0&sd=Styrofoam+Pumpkin+Decorations


pumpkin songs
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/fall/pumpkinsongs.htm

another pumpkin poem:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/fall/pumpkinpoem1.htm

some jack o lantern coloring pages:
http://www.coloring.ws/halloween-pumpkins.htm

edited to add: sorry about the link for oriental trading.  Can't get links to work today.  Don't know what's wrong with me!!  Anyway, if you do a search for "pumpkin" once you're on the homepage for oriental trading, they have cute tiny pumpkins  $2.99 for 12 on page 7 of the search (not page # for catalog).  I don't know if those are too tiny though.

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Good books:
Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll

and of course, The Legend of Spookley, the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano (our dd's favorite)

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at easter we decorate plastic eggs, so we use stickers(nothign else would work). The sticky felt pre-cut would be ideal. I am sure you can find plastic pumpkins at Michaels or something...but hurry, they probably go fast!!

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O.K. I found one of my old teaching magazines, so this idea is from The Mailbox magazine (year 2000!).

Pumpkin Bowling

You need 10 plastic soda bottles that have been thoroughly washed (or use water bottles)
Make ears of corn out of construction paper and attach to the front of each soda/water bottle. Use pumpkin (or basketball if you can't find a pumpkin to use) to do pumpkin bowling.

To keep score...they suggest making scoreboards by having pictures of ears of corn. The child colors in the number of ears of corn that they knocked over and they write the number on the line. For their next turn, they color in ears of corn in the next line on their scoresheet so they have it in a graph form.

Dd learned about tally marks in kindergarten though, so that's an alternate way to keep score. Have the kids tally their score and then count by fives to add up their score. It's good practice with tally marks and less prep work (you don't have to draw all those ears of corn on score sheets).

seanmn

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http://www.dobhran.com/greetings/GRhalloween3.htm

Remmy:

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I think it would be really AWESOME if you went dressed in a PUMPKIN costume!

A.K.A.
Pumpkin Lady!   :'D

JK but that would be schweeeeeeet!

ajasfolks2:

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OH my holy pumpkin-ness.  I love the pumpkin bowling game.

I    : guess :   I could dress up as a pumpkin.  What -- are there hefty garbage bags out right now that look like pumpkins?  (OK, I think I remember once a few years ago seeing leaf bags that looked like jack-o-lanterns.) 

IF I can find the plastic mini-pumpkins, I might do that for craft activity, if they need more to do.

But the bowling will take time and be fun and fit in with the graphing they are doing these days.  Plus they're working on "sphere" & "cone" and "cube" so I will bring a basketball too so they have a true sphere to use.  Maybe compare their scores using pumpkin-as-ball versus basketball.

I do have a couple books & will look for a couple of suggested others at library to have for teacher to use during the week if we don't read any of them on Pumpkin Day. 

You are all great!   Thank you for the fabulous ideas!

~ (Oh, you can keep 'em coming if you want . . . lots of these are useful for the parties next week as food-free-fun!)

ajasfolks2, 9/26/2008

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Bumpkin!   

2008 Follow ons:

McCobbre:

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In our Houston school they always did pumpkin math.  It was quite cool actually. 

Each class cut open a pumpkin (no one allergic), but beforehand guesstimated the number of seeds, how much it weighs, etc.  They weighed it, counted the seeds, did other things like that.

GingerPye:

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I was in need of some poems/fingerplays/songs for apples in September.  I came across this website:

http://www.dcrafts.com/pumpkins.htm

Which is Mrs. Bee's Busy Classroom site.  It is really terrific!!

It had tons and tons of this stuff.  The above link is strictly about pumpkins!

pumpkin

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Oh, I thought you were calling me 

{{end page 1, original thread}}


McCobbre

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Well, it's about time you showed up!

ajasfolks2

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Related threads about Halloween:

http://allergy.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=613&start=1


http://allergy.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=416&start=1

http://allergy.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=1035&start=1

http://allergy.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=6466&start=16

http://allergy.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=924&start=1

ajasfolks2, 9/30/2010

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bump and adding some cool stuff!

http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-crafts/halloween-decorations/owl-a-glow-930946/

Especially great for many of us who must do "nonHalloween" type crafts for fall parties/events.

Owls are fun and fascinating to most kids.  Fall is a great time to spot an owl for many folks . . . sun sets earlier and kids are still up . . . rodents are scurrying.

Just fun!

ajasfolks2

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Cute idea for those who are allowed to do more "Halloweeny" theme, but don't want to use real pumpkins:

http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-crafts/halloween-decorations/flowerpot-pumpkins-671272/

ajasfolks2

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Great "Mr Potato/Pumpkin Head" idea -- could be modified in all sorts of ways to fit needs and abilities and ages.

http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-crafts/halloween-decorations/freaky-faces-674626/

RoseLynn

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We made up Halloween Bingo cards and the kids loved that.

Also we did a counting/estimating game. Most of the time I see those games with candy and we didn't want to do that. We did end up using unpopped popcorn. It was still food but I knew no one would eat the kernels. We gave the winner the jar to take home and pop. Maybe you could use acorns or something else in the jar too.

ajasfolks2

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You could fill jar with beads and tie a bow around it made of stringing cord or leather . . . ready to go for the estimation winner.

Younger boys will go for beads I find, especially if there are dark colors and some more "earthy" beads. (Often for younger grades, fall theme moves into Native American theme as they head toward tGiving . . . so think towards beads with that in mind) 

ajasfolks2

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Just want to say, I've done pumpkin bowling for grades K through 3 and it has been a blast.

Just change it up based on age & ability.

Be prepared -- things will get a bit raucous as kids cheer each other on to knock down the pins.

{{END of orginal thread}}

This is link to old thread from old place.  I'll try to copy/paste the whole thing over here in wee hours tonite.

Meanwhile, feel free to add to this thread with new ideas!

Objective:  FULLY FOOD FREE celebration!

http://allergy.hyperboards.com/action/view_topic/topic_id/827/start/1