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Pumpkin or Jack-o'-Lantern Painting Craft Autumn · Halloween Preschool Printable Activity

Review the pumpkin and jack o'lantern theme to view all the activities and resources available to explore all the learning possibilities.

Note: It would be wonderful to have real pumpkins for the children to see, touch and smell for these activities and try to wear something orange during the activities.

Materials:

• For painting version #1 print pumpkin template and for version #2 use one small thin paper plate.
• 1 sheet of black or dark blue construction paper for the background.
• Scissors
• Water colors or tempera paints diluted - orange, brown & green
  paint brushes or small sponge pieces.
• Glue or glue stick. Stapler optional for stapling plate to background.
• Optional: salt to sprinkle on wet paint
• Optional: torn green tissue paper or green construction paper for bed of leaves.
• Optional: stapler for paper plate option

Art Appreciation: For an alternative to the art activity below, older children could set up pumpkins to do a still life painting with this related activity.

Color Practice:  Make sure to identify colors and shapes associated with the painting and how the color orange is obtained by mixing red and yellow.

Version 1:  A Pumpkin Painting (or Jack-o'-lantern) with pumpkin template

1. Print pumpkin template, it does not need to be precise cutting, just enough to have the image with bed of leaves. Optional: Print your choice of jack-o'-lantern features provided.
2. Place newspaper to cover painting surface.
3. Have orange, green and brown paints ready with brushes or sponges
4. Have children paint the pumpkin orange, the bed of leaves green and stem brown. Tell the children the colors can mix slightly.
5. While paint is still wet provide children with a salt shaker or a small amount of salt to sprinkle over the pumpkin. This is going to give a wonderful effect, the areas where the salt falls is going to become darker in different shades and give texture to the painting.
6. While the paint is still wet, children can also add torn pieces of green tissue paper on the bed of leaves. The tissue paper will stick to the painting without glue and add texture.
7. Set the pumpkins to dry and conduct your choice of one or two of the learning activities  (online story time, puzzle, coloring)
8. When the pumpkins are dry, help cut out.

Glue the painted pumpkin to the black construction paper.

Version 2: Easy Pumpkin with Paper Plate

1. Instead of the pumpkin template, the children can paint the back of a small desert paper plate.  With a marker you can add some black curved lines  to simulate the ridges of a pumpkin or use oil pastels or crayons prior to painting (resist effect) which remain intact when paint is added. Optional: Print your choice of Jack-o'-lantern features.
2. Cut out a rectangle from brown construction paperor from a brown lunch paper bag big enough for a pumpkin stem.
3. Glue, tape or staple brown stem to paper plate.
4. Proceed with steps as above, except that the painted plate must be stapled a few times in place to the black construction paper (adult does this step)
5. Glue torn green tissue paper, construction paper or real dry leaves near the bottom of the pumpkin as shown.

Templates:

• Close template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero (minimum) if you have trouble fitting the template on one page or review Print Help.

Pumpkin on leaves            B&W

Jack-o'-lantern features     color   B&W
(eyes, nose, mouth)

Related printable activities:

Alphabet printable activities

J is for Jack-o'-lantern


P is for Pumpkin

Autumn > Halloween > Pumpkins >