Fall is pumpkin time! Time for picking pumpkins, decorating pumpkins and just playing with pumpkins! Of course, its also time for pumpkin crafts as well, and you can learn with pumpkins too!
I love this method of learning, I’ve used it several times, it just depends on the time of year. I’ve made an A is for Apple, H is for Heart, and now a P is for Pumpkin!
I cut a pumpkin out of orange cardstock paper. Of course, my kids didn’t think I made them very well and didn’t think they looked like pumpkins. So, find a pumpkin shape to trace if you have trouble (you can easily Google and find some, I did… but well, I still free-handed it and it wasn’t good enough I guess).
I added a little green stem to complete the pumpkin look (well, as best I could I guess…). Looking at it now I think it would be fun to add in some green curly pieces. A pipe cleaner would work great, or curling ribbon.
I then wrote letters all around the pumpkin, writing several P’s first and then filling in around them. For George (he’s 5) I wrote lowercase letters, and I wrote a lot of them. For Louis though, I spread the letters out so there was only a few and did a lot more P’s.
In the past, we’ve used paper clips to clip the letter on the pumpkin (or apple, or heart). I’ve found that its hard for little kids to manipulate a paper clip though. George has the hang of it, but I wanted to try something else this time.
Louis has also tried clothespins, but that was still too hard for him to pinch. They are great for strengthening little fingers!
So this time, we tried a hole punch for George and just snipping the letters with a scissors for Louis.
Using a scissors is a somewhat new concept for Louis. I wasn’t particular in how he was holding it.
I showed him a couple of times, but didn’t push it. He’ll figure it out in time.
And a hole punch. Wow, that’s actually a lot harder. It takes a lot of hand strength to push them shut all the way.
George kept halfway punching through the paper and then trying again to punch all the way through.
It made is ten times harder to do it when he didn’t get it the first punch. So I stressed to him to really try hard on that first punch.
It made it easier, but it still quite a task for him.
They went around their pumpkins, finding the letter P and punching or snipping it! It was great fine motor practice with added letter learning.
And P is a tricky letter! Lowercase B and D look a lot like a P does.
Honestly though, the boys didn’t get a big kick out of this activity. They found their P’s and did it, and then they were done. They weren’t too impressed. (Just disclosing fully here…)
More Fall Fine Motor Fun:
- Spiral Ghost Cutting Practice
- Beaded Spider Craft
- Cereal Fall Tree Craft
Pin this idea to do with the kids:
Find the Letter on the Pumpkin on handsonaswegrow.com
No comments:
Post a Comment