Pumpkin Guts Sensory Play

We are continuing our pumpkin/fall theme this week in preschool and are learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The perfect book to go along with this theme is Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell (affiliate link). It is a cute book about a boy who in the course of one year, watches as his jack-o-lantern, Jack, decomposes, sprouts and finally produces more pumpkins in time for Fall. Since the weather isn’t quite cold enough to carve pumpkins yet, we explored the inside of a pumpkin through sensory play with a Pumpkin Guts Sensory Bin.

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HOW TO MAKE A PUMPKIN GUTS SENSORY BIN

Supplies you will need:

plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin (we found ours at Walmart)
yellow yarn
wooden beads (The ones we used were found at Hobby Lobby)
pumpkin carving scoop (we used the one out of this kit)
mini tongs
scissors

Directions:

1. To make the pumpkin insides “the guts” cut your yarn into 18-24-inch sections and put them in a pile inside your pumpkin. Place your wooden beads inside the pumpkin and mix them in with your yarn.

2. Place a small pumpkin guts scoop and some small tongs next to your pumpkin. The tongs work great for gripping the wooden beads.

3. After reading the book Pumpkin Jack, I let my daughter explore the insides of her pumpkin. I decided to put a small container next to the pumpkin where she could put her wooden beads (seeds) into after finding them in the pumpkin. [For a great math extension, have your toddler/preschooler count all of her seeds after finding them in the pumpkin.]

She started out having fun using the tongs and scoop to discover the insides of the pumpkin but she eventually dug right in with her hands, just like it was a real pumpkin. I loved it! Seriously, this is such a fun mess-free way way to explore what the insides of pumpkin are like!