Halloween Craft for Toddlers: Paper Pumpkin (Jack-O-Lantern) Decorations

Materials:

• orange construction paper
• yellow foam sheet/s
• black felt
• Sharpie marker
• pencil
• scissors
• white glue
• Popsicle sticks

Instructions:

1. Using a pencil, draw different sized pumpkins on orange construction paper. Cut them out
2. For the large pumpkins, cut out appropriate sized eyes, noses and mouths from the black felt. To give the kids some choice, cut different shapes for the eyes, such as circles, triangles, and crescents (for a winking pumpkin face). They could also choose from circle shaped mouths, smiles or frowns. (I kept the noses simple and made them all triangles.)
3. Do the same for the smaller pumpkins using the yellow foam, cut into smaller shapes.
4. Draw with pencil on each pumpkin stars where the eyes should go, a swirl where the nose should go, and a line where the mouth should go.
5. After providing the toddlers with glue and a Popsicle stick each (though they could also use their fingers), give them one small step at a time to follow at a time. (Eg. Put lots of glue over one of your stars, and then I will give you an eye to stick on. Withhold each facial feature until they have put enough glue in that spot, to keep things less confusing for them.
6. Once they have finished each jack-o-lantern, write the first initial of their name in Sharpie marker on the stem of the pumpkin. (This helps with teaching them what letter their name begins with, since they are motivated to find the jack-o-lantern they made when they later see the various decorations on the wall.
7. Decorate the area with the finished masterpieces (some could even go on the door). (I used clear plastic tape to stick them up. Yep, my home is very classy.)