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Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts

October 26, 2011 by Mama Carmody 22 Comments

Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts






I thought I would take another object of the season and give you different learning activities that you can do while you are enjoying this time of year. Yes, some of the ideas are very basic and may seem obvious but sometimes when we are busy with house cleaning, cooking, baths, homework and may even work outside the home, a little extra help coming up with fun educational activities can be quite useful.
Learning Concepts: colors, senses, math concepts: size comparison, measurements, fine motor skills, biblical, reading

Colors

A lot of learning comes from simply talking with your child and challenging them to take a look at their surroundings. When you go to pick out your pumpkins this year discuss with your child the colors they see. The obvious color they will mention, when looking at a pumpkin, is that it’s orange but there are probably other colors on it too. Some of them have green spots or possibly dirt stuck on it. What color is the stem? Is it brown or is it still green? If you are in a pumpkin patch, the vines may still be laying around. Are they still green or have they turned brown? Possibly some of the leaves on the vines have turned yellow. Just keep talking and encouraging your child to take in the sights that surround them.

Pumpkins are Orange: Learning activities that include pumpkins.
Pumpkins are Orange: Learning activities that include pumpkins.

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Arts/Crafts

Click here and you can get a template of a pumpkin to print out and have your child color or paint it. After your child has applied the color, cut out some eyes, noses and mouths. Let your child decide what kind of facial features they want to put on their pumpkin. If you have children that cover a wide age span, let the older ones cut out the facial features for the little ones.

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Size Comparison

Do you have more than one child in your house? Did you purchase more than one pumpkin for your front porch? Take the time to talk about the different sizes you have. Have your child point out the biggest one and the smallest one. Is there a middle size one? Even some of the fast food restaurants don’t realize that you can’t have a middle size if there isn’t a large and a small one.

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Biblical

There are many interesting ways to incorporate biblical lessons in the fun activities you are doing. Here is a fun one that you can do while carving your pumpkins this Halloween.

Materials

Large pumpkin and a carving knife.

Object Lesson on Prayer

{cut off top of pumpkin}
Lord, open my mind so I can learn new things about You.
{remove innards}
Remove the things in my life that don’t please You.
Forgive the wrong things I do and help me to forgive others.
{cut open eyes}
Open my eyes to see the beauty You’ve made in the world around me.
{cut out nose}
I’m sorry for the times I’ve turned my nose at the good food You provide.
{cut out mouth}
Let everything I say please You.
{light the candle}
Lord, help me show Your light to others through the things I do. Amen
Inspired by the children’s book, “The Pumpkin Patch Parable”, by Liz Curtis Higgs

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Sensory Play/Fine Motor Skills

While you are busy carving that pumpkin, let you child have some fun with sensory play. Believe it or not squishing the slimy inside of a pumpkin and picking out the slick seeds are great for their senses and fine motor skills. Why is sensory play so important to children? As Amanda Morgan explains on her blog, NotJustCute, children are wired to use their senses from the day they are born. Amanda says, “The senses are their most familiar, most basic way to explore, process, and come to understand new information.”

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Measurements

Is there any better way to learn about measurements than by cooking with your family? And just think, when you are done with this math lesson, you get to eat the results!

There are many types of math skills involved in cooking. If your children are younger, just having them count is good for them. If you need 2 cups of flour, have the child count along. If your child is older, then cooking is a good way to introduce and strengthen their skills with fractions. If you need one cup of sugar, ask your child how many half cups would equal one cup.

The following recipe is one that my niece brought home from school when she was in the second grade. It became a family standard and we call it Stephanie’s Sweet Pumpkin Bread.

Stephanie’s Sweet Pumpkin Bread

4 eggs
½ cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup cooked pumpkin
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 ¾ cups molasses
½ tsp. ground cloves
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. baking soda

Instructions:
1. Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl. Beat well.
2. Add the water, oil, pumpkin, molasses and brown sugar. Beat well.
3. Sift in the flour, salt, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
4. Stir all the ingredients well.
5. Grease two loaf pans. Pour the batter into the pans. Be careful not to fill them more than 2/3’s full
6. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350°.
7. Let the bread cool in the pans for at least 15 minutes before removing.

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Great pumpkin books:

Speaking of great pumpkin books, how about the book about the Great Pumpkin:
“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” by Charles M. Schulz
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a wonderful book that should be shared from generation to generation.

Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins because she had to eat tons of pumpkins when she was young. She doesn’t even want to look at a pumpkin. So how does she end up with a yard full of pumpkins and what does she do with them? Read this fun little book and find out.

Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a light-hearted look at the life cycle of a pumpkin named Jack. The plant’s cycle throughout the seasons is told in a simple, easy to understand, way.

Dr. Pompo’s Nose by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is one of my favorite pumpkin books. I read this to my preschool classes every year and they loved it. It is written in rhyme, which I love. The way Freymann and Elffers carve facial features into the pumpkins, to give them personality, is absolutely adorable. Your child will enjoy helping Dr. Pompo figure out what the lost stem might actually be.

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Related Posts

A is for Apples: You Can Learn More Than ABC’s From Apples

How to Eat a Pumpkin : A Lesson From a 3 Year Old

How to Eat a Pumpkin, Part 2

Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts
Thanksgiving Learning Activities
Thanksgiving Fun with Turkeys

Zombie Zapper Brain Boost Smoothie

Filed Under: Autumn/Fall, Learning Activities Tagged With: autumn, children, fall, learn, learning, learning concepts, orange, pumpkin prayer, pumpkins

Learning Activities for the Color Orange

June 13, 2012 by Mama Carmody 7 Comments

Learning Activities for the Color Orange





I usually taught the color orange in the fall so we would do pumpkin or jack-o-lantern crafts. But it’s summer time as I am writing this post so I had to come up with some other more “summery” learning activities for the color orange. If it happens to be the fall when you are reading this post or you will be waiting to teach or review the color orange in the fall be sure to check out my post Pumpkins Are Orange and Other Learning Concepts for more ideas.

Content:

Clothing
Toys
Craft:
Carrot
Snacks
Finger Play
Story Time
Music
Related Posts


Clothing

Go through you closets and drawers and see what kinds of orange clothing you have to put on today. Orange is a great summer color; so bright and cheery. Get dressed in your orange and have a blast today.

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Toys

What kinds of orange toys can you find to play with? Like I said before, as I am writing this post it is early in the summer so look at some of your outside summer toys and see if they are orange or have orange on them. Do you have an orange ball or a beach ball with orange on it? How about an orange water gun? You could get a package of water balloons and only fill the orange ones then have a great orange water balloon fight!

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Craft

Have fun learning about the color orange with this carrot craft.

Carrot Craft

This is a good craft for a little one. It’s very simple and they can practice using their fine motor skills while tearing pieces of paper.

Materials Needed for Orange Carrot Craft
Materials Needed for Orange Carrot Craft

 

Materials:
Disposable icing bags
Orange construction
Green ribbon or rickrack
Scissors for cutting ribbon

 

 

1) Have your child tear the orange construction paper into little pieces. I used 3 pieces to fill the icing bag.

Learning Activities for the Color Orange: Orange Carrot Craft
Learning Activities for the Color Orange: Orange Carrot Craft

2) Have them put the pieces of construction paper into a disposable icing bag.

Learning Activities for the Color Orange: Orange Carrot Craft
Learning Activities for the Color Orange: Orange Carrot Craft

3) Tie the bag off with the ribbon.
4) Now you have an orange carrot.

Have fun learning about the color orange with this carrot craft.

* I have seen something similar to this done for snacks or party favors; substituting the paper with orange jellybeans or goldfish crackers (mine is filled with Cheez-Its).

Learning Activities for the Color Orange: Snack Filled Carrot

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Foods for snack or meal time

oranges, orange juice, carrots, sweet potato fries, goldfish crackers, orange pepper

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Finger Play

Alley Cats

One orange alley cat wondering what to do
(hold up 1 finger then hold up both hands in a questioning manner)
Along came another cat, And now there are two
(hold up 2 fingers)
Two orange alley cats scamper up a tree
(act like climbing a tree)
Along came another cat, And now there are three
(hold up 3 fingers)
Three orange alley cats, Running through the door
(act like you are running)
Look here comes another cat! And now there are four
(hold up 4 fingers)
Four orange alley cats, Playing in our drive
(act like cats playing, batting at yarn, etc)
Out pounces another cat, And now there are five
(hold up 5 fingers)
Five orange alley cats, Hear a scary sound
(freeze in place, looked scared)
Oh no it’s a dog!
Run, cats, run so we can’t be found!
(act like you are running away)
– Author Unknown
Adapted from http://rhymes.yakaberry.com/cats.html

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Story Time

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
Reading Level: 4 yrs and up
“Mr. Plumbean lived on a street where all the houses were just the same.”…UNTIL?!?!…read this book to find out what happens to Mr. Plumbean’s house and how he “fixes” the problem. What would you do if this happened to your house? How would you fix the problem?

The Enormous Carrot by Vladimir Vagin
Reading Level: Ages 3 and up
Daisy and Floyd planted a beautiful garden. Everything grew exactly as they planned except for one enormous exception. Right in the middle of their garden grew an extra large carrot. Read this cute little story to find out how they were able to harvest this huge surprise.

Orange: Seeing Orange All Around Us (A+ Books) by Sarah L. Schuette
Reading Level: 5 yrs old and up
Here is another great color book from an author that has quickly become one of my favorites. I love her color themed books. Like her other color books, the primary theme of the book is written in rhyme. After you have read through the book you can go back and get more information about the orange item on each page. You can learn interesting facts about carrots, butterflies and tigers, as well as several other objects. There is also an informational section in the back with more opportunities for learning and fun activities for the color orange. I believe that it is given such a high reading level because of the extra information on each page. Personally, I would read this to a child that was under the age of 1 year old. I believe the rhythm of the rhyme and the bright pictures would keep them interested.

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Music

Here is a song I enjoyed about the color orange. It even helps your child learn to spell. Because of copyright laws I won’t attach a link to it but you can do a search on the internet and either find the CD or a YouTube version.

Orange Song by Frog Street Press

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Related Posts

The Lessons – Overview
Colors – Overview
A is for Apple: You Can Learn More Than Your ABC’s from Apples
Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts
Learning Activities for the Color Red
Learning Activities for the Color Blue
Learning Activities for the Color Yellow
Learning Activities for the Color Green
Learning Activities for the Color Purple

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Filed Under: Colors, Learning Activities Tagged With: color, colors, educational activities, fun learning, learn, learning, learning activities for orange, learning activities for the color orange, learning colors, learning concepts, learning fun, learning opportunities, lessons, love to laugh, love to laugh and learn, love to learn, making learning fun, orange, preschool, preschool lessons

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