Paper Plate Pumpkin

Toddler, Pre-K

I used this simple craft to help my toddler work on identifying his facial features. And, I also made the craft two-sided so we can see the difference between a pumpkin and a jack-o-lantern.

For this craft you will need:

• 1 paper plate
• Crayons, markers or paint in orange
  
• Brown pipe cleaner, or brown construction paper
• Green construction paper
• Black construction paper (optional)
• Popsicle Stick (optional)
  
• Glue Stick
• Stapler
  

Paint the outside of two paper plates and let them dry. When you put the two plates together they should make a 3-D shape. Cut a stem from the brown paper, and one or two leaves from the green paper. You could also just draw these items on white paper and color it in and then cut it out if you don't have construction paper. Glue your stem and leaf (leaves) to the inside of one of the plates. (I added a Popsicle stick (taped) at the bottom of my pumpkin since I was also demonstrating the difference between pumpkin and jack-o-lantern. If you do this, tape your Popsicle stick on at the same time you do your other add ons.) Put the other plate on top and staple closed.

There's your pumpkin.

To add my jack-o-lantern side, I cut out eyes, nose, and mouth shapes from black construction paper and let him glue them on as we talked about his facial features and the pumpkins.


Mommy Tip: If you are doing one of the other pumpkin paint activities, this would be a good time to let your child paint the paper plate. You can then let it dry and put it away for later in the week or month and you only have to clean up the paint once!