Pumpkin or Jack-o'-Lantern Painting Craft | Alphabet Letter P Theme | Autumn | Halloween | Preschool Lesson Plan Printable Activities and Worksheets
|Themes||Instructions and Suggestions||Materials|
Review the Pumpkin
section to review all the activities and resources available to explore all the learning possibilities.
Note: It would be wonderful to have real pumpkins for the children to see, touch and smell for these activities and try to wear orange during the activities.
Art and Craft Activity: A Pumpkin Painting - Ages 2+
For an alternative to the art activity below older children could set up pumpkins to do a still life painting with this related activity.
This is a fun painting project that can be done a couple of ways to make it more challenging for older children. The children will paint an image of a pumpkin on a bed of leaves or create the image with a paper plate, then attach the painted pumpkin to a black background (construction paper). Children's names can be written with chalk on a corner for easy identification.
Jack-O'-Lantern Variation for the Painting Activity:
This painting activity can be adapted to make a Halloween Jack-o'-lantern - view illustration on materials column.
Here are templates to print Jack-o'-lantern features.
*Template #1 black features
*Template #2 black & white format to color or trace over black construction paper (use chalk or glitter pen)
Color Practice: Make sure to identify colors and shapes associated with the painting and how the color orange is obtained by mixing red and yellow.
* 1 piece of black construction paper
brown construction paper if doing the paper plate option - cut out a small rectangle for pumpkin stem.
* For painting version #1 print pumpkin template and for version #2 use one small thin paper plate.
* Scissors, glue or glue stick, tape and stapler
* Water colors or tempera paints diluted - orange, brown & green
paint brushes or small sponge pieces
* glue, glue stick or tape (stapler optional for stapling plate)
*Optional: Salt to sprinkle on wet paint, and torn green tissue paper or green construction paper for bed of leaves.
Version 1: A Pumpkin Painting (or Jack-O'-Lantern) with pumpkin template
1. Print and cut out the pumpkin template, it does not need to be precise cutting, just enough to have the image with bed of leaves. Optional: Print your choice of Jack-o'-lantern features provided above or materials column.
2. Place newspaper to cover painting surface.
3. Have orange, green and brown paints ready with brushes or sponges.
4. Have children paint the pumpkin orange, the bed of leaves green and stem brown. Tell the children the colors can mix slightly.
5. While paint is still wet provide children with a salt shaker or a small amount of salt to sprinkle over the pumpkin. This is going to give a wonderful effect, the areas where the salt falls is going to become darker in different shades and give texture to the painting.
6. While the paint is still wet, children can also add torn pieces of green tissue paper on the bed of leaves. The tissue paper will stick to the painting without glue and add texture.
7. Set the pumpkins to dry and conduct your choice of one or two of the learning activities (online story time, puzzle, coloring)
8. When the pumpkins are dry, the children can glue or add a few pieces of tape or glue in the back and attach/paste to the black construction paper -- see illustration. Using the tape gives the pumpkin a raised effect that looks very nice.
Version #2: Easy Pumpkin with Paper Plate
1. Instead of the pumpkin template, the children can paint the back of a small desert paper plate. With a marker you can add some black curved lines to simulate the ridges of a pumpkin or use oil pastels or crayons prior to painting (resist effect) which remain intact when paint is added. Optional: Print your choice of Jack-o'-lantern features provided above or materials column.
2. Cut out a rectangle from brown construction or white piece or paper that can be painted brown, big enough for a pumpkin stem.
3. Glue, tape or staple brown stem to paper plate
4. Proceed with steps as above, except that the painted plate must be stapled a few times in place to the black construction paper (adult does this step) and then glue torn green tissue paper or construction paper to make the bed of leaves.
*Try to dress in something orange today - both educator and children.