When we started the book, we found that book shares various places in the United States big pumpkins could visit. We traveled to a hot air balloon festival in New Mexico, to Vermont to see pumpkin boat races, and to Mount Rushmore to name a few. It was fun to see giant pumpkins side by side monuments and landmarks.
There is an area in the back of the book that shares a couple of facts about each place. We haven’t taken out a map to find each state and where the landmark is in each state yet, but I think we will.
What did we do to explore the book?
Halloween Craft
We made a button pumpkin face. Last year I bought a bag of colored buttons. (We have used them over and over again for learning games and crafts.) We sorted through the bag to find all the green buttons. The green buttons would be used to create the pumpkin face.
Then I pulled out come pipe cleaners and some orange grid circles. ( I found the orange circles at a dollar store in the houseware area. I think they were supposed to be coasters)
We tried arranging the button in various ways on the circle to create different eye, nose and mouth designs. Different sized buttons created very different looks.
When JDaniel found a face that he liked, we worked at adding one facial at a time. A section of pipe cleaner was threaded through two of each button holes. The ends of the pipe cleaner were then poked through the holes in the grid. Threading the pipe cleaner into the button holes wasn’t easy. It ended up being a tricky fine motor activity.
When the pipe cleaner was through the holes, the circle was turned over and the ends of the pipe cleaner were twisted and flattened. The eyes and nose buttons were put in place using this technique.
For the mouth several buttons were placed on a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner started at the bottom of the first button and continued being pushed up and down through the buttons’ holes until several buttons were on the pipe cleaner. Both ends of the pipe cleaner were pushed through the holes nearest them when we placed the mouth on top of the circle. JDaniel created little hooks at the ends of the pipe cleaner to hold them in place.
I thought we were done when the smile was in place, but I was told the pumpkin needed a stem. I decided to take a picture and post it on Instagram to see what other people thought about the pumpkin. The answers came back unanimous. A stem was needed. We threaded a couple of button onto a pipe cleaner and attached them to the top of the pumpkin.
The stem does look cute. JDaniel and my Instagram followers should be happy with how it stands out.
If you like this Halloween craft, you will love the crafts found on my Crafts for Kids Pinterest board.
It looks great. I bet it was a little tricky to make.
This looks awesome! How much fun is it that you always do fun crafts with your books? It’s such a great way to really make the little one feel involved, and really pay attention to the book. LOVE it!
What a great craft!! When I saw the picture at first, I thought those were olive slices on the mat! Hahaha. Having to manipulate the pipe cleaner through the button holes is excellent fine motor skills work. This is a great one (and so cute!) !! –Lisa
That’s really cute!
This is a great book-craft pairing! I love how the pumpkin face came together. I have to look for this book for geography.
what a cute book and craft 😉
we just bought a few craft items at the dollar store the other day…
should be a fun weekend
This is such a great project! Wonderful for hand-and-eye coordination. And so colourful.
I love it. Forgive me if you already did this, as I’m late to the party, but this is a nice post to link up to our Ladies Only Blog Share Link Party today. The theme is Halloween!
This is great! Love the materials you used!
What a fantastic idea!!!! LOVE this!
I have always liked your blog because it’s so creative.. Ben loves books and is reading at a 3rd grade level..He is in 1st grade now.. I loved the owl made of leaves.. He was here all day Friday because of no school and we made a owl out of leaves we collected.. I’m going to send it to school on Monday so his teacher can see how really really cute it is and easy to make.. THanks for all your wonderful ideas~!
Ben’s favorite books right now is SkippyjonJones written by Judy Schachner.. It’s a comedy about a Siamese Cat named SkippyjonJones and wants to be a Chihuahua. It also has Spanish words for kids to learn …..
Have a great Saturday…ta ta for now from Iowa:)
Another cute idea and great for fine motor skills
That’s a cute idea. I was thinking it was a real pumpkin done with buttons. I’m always on the lookout for pumpkin decorations that don’t involve digging around in the nasty pumpkin guts. I finally ended up doing something with push pins and yarn – sort of like string art. Which would be a fun thing for kids too. There are a boatload of ideas out on Pinterest. That place is SO addicting!
That’s a very good idea for sewing for kids–and not just for pumpkins! Good idea about the coasters too!
Great busy and fine motor activity for after school! Thanks for sharing!