It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Fall is definitely my absolute favorite season. I love the pumpkin scents, warm bonfires, cooler weather, and all the holiday joy that follows. If you’re homeschooling your little one (or teaching your students in your classroom) be sure to check out my preschool pumpkin activities and centers for an entire week of this preschool pumpkin theme with fun and engaging lessons to keep your little ones learning!
Preschool Halloween Crafts
First things first though.. how stinkin’ cute are these preschool Halloween crafts? I’m obsessed with crafts that are coupled with academics and I think this Frankenstein craft might just take the cake.
This preschool Halloween craft comes with a boy and girl Frankenstein and various sweet treat notes. This is the perfect fall bulletin board idea to show case to the school how sweet your class is! Honestly the kids get SUCH a kick out of spreading kindness so I always end up giving them ones to share with their friends, favorite teachers, or anyone else that is special to them!
One of my favorite things about being a teacher is building my students up with words of affirmation! Here’s a FREEBIE for all my favorite teacher friends out there. Each one of your students has at least one GREAT quality about them. SHARE this post and let your kiddos know they are a “Sweet Treat” and a valued part of your classroom community!
Preschool Pumpkin Theme
Here’s an at a glance look at what our preschool pumpkin theme will be covering this entire week.
Fun Pumpkin Activities
Subitizing is a skill that thankfully never gets old because I’ll probably be working on it all.year.long. Kendall loves these activities because she feels so successful completing them. To play, just grab a card and say how many seeds you see in the pumpkin. Then, cover that numbered pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. This also comes with a fun worksheet for some paper, pencil work.
We went on a pumpkin hunt today using my pumpkin printables and it did not disappoint! It was so much fun singing “we’re going on a bear hunt” while searching for the hidden pumpkins around the room. This is a great activity if your little one needs to work on:
- number recognition
- colors
- or if you’re in need of a fun gross motor activity to get your little ones up and moving!
Simply hang these pumpkins around the room and have your kiddos search for them, identify the color and the number, and run back to color it in on the worksheet! LOADS OF FUN!
Syllable stack is turning into my new favorite game. I love how engaging it is for my little ones and how much genuine learning takes place while playing it. All you do is roll a die and move that number of spaces. Then identify the object and the number of syllables in the word. After that, stack that amount of cubes on top of it. Yay for literacy, fine motor, and math skills all piled into one!
I couldn’t stop there though. You know I love a good cut and paste activity. These are extremely important for little hands to master so I threw one in along with the game. Enjoy! 🙂
This beginning sound pumpkin patch is a fun and engaging way to introduce phonics to your little ones. I love how each of the pieces fit perfectly into my favorite photo boxes. Simply match the pumpkins to the correct pumpkin patch.
Here’s a simple counting activity to 20 for you! Choose a card and place that many pumpkins on the vine. If you have these super cute mini erasers, they would make this activity even funner!
We took it back to the basics with this pumpkin matching activity. If you have a tiny tot who needs to work on matching and one to one correspondence skills… this one is for you!
Anyone else’s kiddos absolutely freak out with excitement when you pull out BINGO? I know my kids do, so I created a rhyming activity to encourage foundational literacy skills to target this fall.
Pumpkin Science Activities for Preschoolers
On top of all of the fun academic activities you can complete this week, you can also do quite a few preschool science activities. Each year we always talk about a pumpkins life cycle and how it has to go through a process to turn into the orange pumpkin that we buy at the pumpkin patch.
In these preschool pumpkin activities, I’ve included an anchor chart that can be displayed to show the life cycle as well as a copy that can be glued into a science journal. This also includes fun life cycle cards that can be connected with Link-N-Learns as a chain, threaded with string, or glued on a ribbon. I’ve also used this as a fun memory activity!
Here’s another preschool science activity your students will love! When I teach the parts of a pumpkin, I always give my students mini sticky notes so they can label their own pumpkin as I label a large anchor chart. This worksheet is a great reinforcement to use after you’ve taught the parts of a pumpkin during your pumpkin themed week.
Here’s another twist that we did this year as well. I purchased these chip dip dishes from Dollar Tree and taped the word bank choices in each section. As my daughter and I carved our pumpkin, we separated and discussed each part of a pumpkin and placed it where it should go.
I can not wait to bring this activity back this October!! This one pumpkin lasted soooooo long. We started off by cleaning our pumpkin to build those fine motor skills.
The next day, I cut off the top and we scooped the seeds and fibrous strands out. Don’t let Kendall’s face fool you, she was all about get icky and sticky.
On the third day, we added a handful of baking soda into the pumpkin and poured vinegar on top to watch it “erupt” like a volcano. Kendall LOVED this part so we did it again, and again, and again. Haha! We probably did this 10 or so times within the week.
The next day we decided we were going to bake the seeds and make pumpkin bread! It still blows my mind how much fun we had with one tiny pumpkin!
Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play
I’m so excited to share my pumpkin patch dramatic play area AND the included ACTIVITIES with you! There is seriously SO much goodness with this one.
- Bobbing for apples
- Face Painting
- Corn Maze
- Pumpkin Carving
- Pumpkin Decorating
- Sorting pumpkin sizes
- Hay rides
- A gift shop
- Farmer chores and much more…
Check out my video for a more in depth look at what’s included and how you can pull this off for CHEAP!!!!
Preschool Halloween Activities
We cant talk about pumpkins without mentioning Halloween! They kind of go hand in hand. Well this FREE Halloween printable is a spooky good time, especially when used in a sensory bin. This is perfect for reinforcing letter names, letter recognition, and handwriting with your preschool or kindergarten students. Grab the free capital and lower case letter tracing worksheets here and easily build on your students reading foundation in a fun way!
To turn this preschool halloween activity into a sensory bin first find a tub that’s at least the size of a piece of paper, so the bone letter worksheet can fit inside. Then, put the bone letter worksheet in the tub and a filler (black beans, kinetic sand, toy bones etc) on top of it. After that, have your students search through the objects with a skeleton arm (witches broom, toy shovel etc), looking for bone letters to identify. Once your students find a letter, have them identify it, say the sound that it makes, and write it on the tracing letter worksheets.
Are you looking for more free Halloween printables? Check out my free spider activities post here. These free spider activities help to reinforce sight words and letter recognition in your students. There are also free spider boom cards, counting spider activities, spider poems, crafts. And much, much more. Grab all of these free spider activities to keep your students engaged and learning all season long!
Strengthening fine motor muscles is a big deal with toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten aged students. Mastering this will help them do things like button their shirts, zip their pants, and write their ABCs.
To help with this, I created these fun Halloween fine motor mats. It comes with a bat and a pumpkin to choose from and are highly engaging. All you need are the fine motor mats, paint, and q-tips for tons of fun!
Last but certainly not least, I’ll leave you with this free Halloween fine motor activity. These Halloween Playdoh mats are perfect for building fine motor muscles and handwriting skills. I just know your little ones will love them!
Need More Preschool and Kindergarten Activities?
To see what else is included with these preschool pumpkin activities, head to my shop and check out more pictures and details. If you’re needing more weekly themed activities, you won’t want to miss out on these fun preschool themed lessons:
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