Pumpkins Storytime

all songs, fingerplays, and ideas are used for educational purposes only and not for profit.

Where possible, authors and sources are noted.

Song:

(tune: I'm a little teapot)

I'm a little pumpkin

Fat and round

Sitting in a pumpkin patch, 

on the ground.

I can be a jack-o-lantern

With two bit eyes

Or made into a big fat pie.

Song:

(tune: twinkle, twinkle, little star)

Pumpkin, pumpkin orange and round,

Sitting right there on the ground

Once you were a seed so small

Now you are a great orange ball

Pumpkin, pumpkin orange and round, 

rolling, rolling on the ground.

Poetry:

Peter, peter pumpkin eater

Had a wife and couldn't keep her

He put her in a pumpkin shell

And there he kept her very well.

Poetry:

When you see me in the fields,

My orange glowing in the sun

It's time to say goodbye to summer

And hello to autumn fun!

Poetry:

One day I found two pumpkin seeds

I planted one and pulled the weeds.

It sprouted roots and a big long vine

A pumpkin grew; I called it mine

The pumpkin was quite round and fat

I really am quite proud of that.

But there is something I'll admit

That has me worried just a bit.

I ate the other seed, you see

Now will it grow inside of me?

I'm so relieved since I have found

That pumpkins only grow in the ground!

Pumpkin Stories:

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Stephen Kroll    (1984)

The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin by Stan and Jan Berenstain  (1990)

The Bear Detectives: the Case of the Missing Pumpkin by Stan and Jan Berenstain  (1975)

Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper  (1999)

From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer (2004)

Booklist from Roanoke Library

Craft:

Take a paper plate, cut out eye holes and attach a stick to the bottom. Have children decorate with markers and paint (or pre-cut out construction paper shapes for them to glue on.

Template for pumpkin face

Pumpkin paper plate craft from dltk 

Craft:

Take 2 paper plates and punch holes in them. Have children use a piece of yarn with one end taped to lace the two parts of the "pumpkin" together and then decorate. More lacing project ideas

Craft:

Take a coloring page with many small pumpkins on it and have the kids glue pompoms over the top. You can use white, yellow, orange, and green pompoms to represent the different colors of pumpkins. Supplies needed: coloring pages, glue sticks, pompoms

Coloring Page

Coloring Page:

Mother and daughter holding pumpkins

Cornucopia of fruits

Pumpkin Coloring Page

More Pumpkin storytime ideas

Still more Pumpkin storytime ideas(from first-school)