Pumpkin Play

Tom and I are having a fully Halloween themed October. Yesterday we decided that it was time to carve our first pumpkin of October.

Carving a pumpkin with Tom is a lot of fun as we can use the insides for messy play as well so this gives us two activities in one!

Pumpkin carving is serious business!

Before we carved the Pumpkin Tom and I explored the outside of it together and we spoke about the different textures. We then chose which side would be best for carving as we wanted to carve on the most smooth side. Once we had found the perfect side to carve, I helped Tom to draw on the template. Tom chose between four different templates, in the end he picked the Bat face.

Then we cut the top of the pumpkin off and started to scoop out all of the insides. The middle of the pumpkin was very cold and so this really woke Tom up. It took us a while to scoop all of the middle out as it was all stuck to the sides of the pumpkin!

Once we had an empty smooth pumpkin I helped Tom to explore the inside of the pumpkin in just the same way as we explored the outside. Tom wasn't so sure about putting his hands inside this time!

I carved the pumpkin for Tom and he explored the gooey insides of the pumpkin. It was pretty tricky to carve a Bats face into a pumpkin but that is what Tom wanted and we got there in the end.

Tom then in his standing frame was able to play with the pumpkin insides as a messy play activity. We also both worked together to separate all of seeds so we could dry them out and use them for crafts next week. As I was separating the seeds, Tom was mixing them all back together. We had a lot of fun and Tom was being very cheeky!

This was a great activity for us. We were able to spend a really good amount of time carving and then also exploring all things pumpkin! Im sure you'll all be carving pumpkins soon, let Tom know all of your pumpkin ideas.