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Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Pumpkin Craft with Free Template

It's almost fall and that means pumpkin season! Today I am sharing with you a pumpkin craft that is great for helping to build those fine motor muscles by tearing paper! This pumpkin craft can make a great student created bulletin board, door display or hallway display! Each pumpkin will turn out unique as each child creates the pumpkin in their own way.

This craft is great for toddlers up to kindergarteners. Toddlers may need some help tearing the paper, or paper squares can be provided for them to glue to their pumpkin. Kindergarteners can be given an extra step of adding a face to their pumpkin to create a jack-o-lantern.

First, you need to gather your materials. You will need the pumpkin template (get it for free at the bottom of the post), orange paper, scissors, glue and something to color the stem with.

Each child will get a copy of the pumpkin template. You will need to prep strips of orange paper for students ahead of time, or you can have the students cut their own strips for extra practice with scissor control. I cut mine about a half an inch wide.

The next step is to let the students tear the strips of paper into small pieces. Each student will need 5-6 strips of paper to fill their pumpkin. You can also have them practice scissor skills here by snipping the strips into squares.

After tearing their paper, the students will glue them to their pumpkin. They can place them in any way they want to create their own unique fall pumpkin craft.

Pumpkins can be cut out and displayed as decorations for a pumpkin patch bulletin board, a pumpkin patch door decoration or a fun fall hallway display.

An optional step is to add a face to the pumpkin. Students can cut their own shapes for their jack-o'lantern or select from precut shapes. These jack-o'lanterns will also make a great bulletin board, door and hallway displays for Halloween.

CLICK HERE IF YOU CANNOT SEE THE FORM

Pumpkin Freebie Link

More Pumpkin Freebies

Pumpkin Subitizing and Addition Worksheets (The Chatty Kinder)

Pumpkin Color Matching (Live Love Motherhood)

Pumpkin Shapes (Crafty Curriculum)

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Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Back to School Preschool Activities

This post will explore a variety of activities that are perfect for the beginning of the year in a preschool classroom! You will find math, alphabet, crafts, centers, and more on this page.

School Bus Letter and Number Seek and Find Mats

These seek and find mats have a variety of uses in a preschool or prek classroom. You can use them in math centers, literacy centers, fine motor centers, sensory bins, small groups, as independent practice and more! You can even turn them into write the room activities by placing the cards around the room and having students use the seek and find mat to trace the letters and numbers as they find them. Read about all the different activities here: Back to School Seek and Find Mats with School Buses.

Back to School Activity Bundles

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Saturday, August 6, 2022

Ideas for Using Lowercase Letter Outlines in Your Classroom or Home

Are you a preschool or kindergarten teacher, or just someone who is teaching about the alphabet? These lowercase letter outlines can be a versatile and useful tool to help teach your learners about letters, letter sounds and letter formation. These alphabet outlines have many uses and can be used as craft templates, collage mats, playdough mats and even bulletin board letters!

ALPHABET CRAFTS

This letter j activity has students paint the lowercase letter j with juice. In the above picture, I used purple grape juice and letter students use it just as they do with watercolors.

This lowercase letter f craft has students create a flower using the letter f. Simply create a stem and leaves out of the letter f and then make a flower to place on top.

For this letter a craft, students use a lowercase letter a to make an apple. Color the a red and make a stem, leaf and seeds to complete the apple craft. You can read more about this craft here: A is for Apple Craft

BULLETIN BOARD LETTERS

To use these letter outlines as bulletin board letters, simple print them on the desired colored paper, cut out and attach to a bulletin board.

PLAYDOUGH MATS

To use these alphabet outlines as playdough mats, simply print the letters on regular paper. From here, you have 2 options. You can either laminate the pages or place the pages in page protectors. By doing one of these two things, you can reuse these mats and not worry about the playdough sticking. You then grab some playdough and begin filling each letter.

COLLAGE MATS

To make collage mats, simply print the letters out on regular paper. Next, grab some magazines or other forms of print and look for examples of the desired letter to cut out and glue on the mat. You can also look for pictures that begin with the letter you are working with.

MANIPULATIVE MATS

You start by printing off each letter on regular paper. Next, you locate objects to fill your letter mat. For example, you can use apple mini erasers for the letter A, or marshmallows for the letter M. You use these objects to line the letter outlines to form the letter.

LOWERCASE LETTER OUTLINES

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