Carving pumpkins is an essential part of Halloween. But what do you do if your kids are too young to carve a pumpkin safely or if you just plain don’t like to carve pumpkins? Pull out the paint and paint your pumpkin instead!

Preschoolers love to participate in Halloween themed activities but carving pumpkins is often too difficult for them to master and it can be dangerous giving a preschooler even a dull knife to use.

Painting pumpkins is a wonderful alternative to the traditional pumpkin carving and it allows preschoolers to use their imagination in a safe pumpkin decorating activity.

What You Need

• Small pumpkins that are easy for preschoolers to hold
• Non-toxic paint
• Paintbrushes
• Paint Smocks
• Newspaper
• Paper Plates

What To Do

Let each preschooler pick out a small pumpkin. This activity would be a wonderful follow up to a pumpkin patch field trip but you can also purchase a selection of small pumpkins for preschoolers to choose from. Pumpkin stems can be prickly. If you have an especially prickly pumpkin stem you may want to rub it with a piece of sand paper so preschoolers will not get tiny thorns in their fingers as they handle the pumpkin.

Spread newspaper on the floor, making sure to have lots of overlapping pieces to prevent paint from leaking onto the floor. If it is nice outside you can spread newspaper outside on a cement patio or the grass and give preschoolers a chance to get some fresh fall air at the same time.

Fill several paper plates with a variety of colors of non-toxic paint. Let each preschooler paint their pumpkins any way that they want to. You may want to test your paint before doing this activity. Some paint flakes off of a pumpkin when it dries. If the type of paint that you have does not work well, try mixing a very small amount of water into the paint to thin it out.

When the pumpkins have dried you can use them to decorate your preschool classroom or send them home for your preschoolers to enjoy with their families.

Variation

When the painted pumpkins have dried, you can have preschoolers add some additional decorations to their pumpkins by gluing on a variety of extra craft supplies. Plastic google eyes make a fun addition to the painted pumpkins as do sequins, glitter, and foam shapes.