Pumpkin Sensory Activities

I am a huge believer in all things sensory. Sensory play is so important for all kids. Sensory play helps children to develop critical thinking, creative play and social skills. Working with monthly themes is a fun way to incorporate sensory play and monthly vocabulary. This month I am going to share six different pumpkin sensory activities with you that I set up at home with Tucker. Most of these I also previously did in the classroom with my students too! (I just don’t have pictures from these activities in the classroom!). Be sure to read my other October blog posts for fun ideas too! For advice about holidays in the classroom, check out my tips HERE.

I am sharing six different pumpkin sensory activities you can do in the classroom! You can re-use your same pumpkins all month for these activities and just save the slime activities for the second half of the month! Observe, paint and bathe them over and over again until you are ready to cut them open and use their guts.

Pumpkin Observations

Pumpkins come in all shapes, sizes and textures. I like to buy several different varieties of pumpkins. I do this because there are so many learning opportunities with pumpkins. Trader Joes has mini pumpkins for only 69 cents and large pumpkins for $2.99! Tucker has been using all senses (taste included) to explore pumpkins!

Pumpkin Painting

Painting is so fun but SO messy! It is a favorite pumpkin sensory activity. Grab some pumpkins and paint and let the kiddos have a blast. You can sponge paint, finger paint or paint with brushes. The beauty of painting pumpkins is that you can’t mess it up!

Pumpkin Bath

What do you do when you get messy? You clean it up! After painting pumpkins give them a pumpkin bath. Simply get a bin or sink and fill it with bubble bath. Implement some life skills and provide a sponge to scrub the paint off! Tucker had WAY too much fun with this activity. You can also do pumpkin baths without the painting step. It is totally okay to just clean pumpkins for fun!

Pumpkin Guts in a Bag

Once you are done with the painting and scrubbing it’s time to cut it’s guts out! This clean and easy activity is a perfect pumpkin sensory activity this fall. Fill a Ziploc baggie full of pumpkin guts and let students play in a clean way with slime! Mess free is the way to be! You can also draw a jack-o-lantern face on the bag if you want to make it extra cute!

Pumpkin Slime

Tucker and I made slime and one of us loved it! Guesses on who was not into it? LOL. He touched it once and was done!

The slime will not last all month, so I recommend using one of the pumpkins you used in the beginning of the month for other sensory activities to help you make slime. I created a visual direction recipe for you to make the slime with your class. You can also send this home for families to make too! Follow the recipe below and make your own slime! Download the FREE printable recipe here in my free resource library! All you need is:

Pumpkin
Water
Elmer’s Clear School Glue
Contact Solution
Baking Soda
Orange Food Coloring

Pumpkin Seed Crafts

There are so many activities you can do with pumpkin seeds. You can count them. They can be dyed and sorted by color. You can create a bunch of craft ideas. The options are endless! You can also cheat and buy a bag of pumpkin seeds from Trader Joes for just two bucks if you don’t want to clean and roast them yourself! (I always did!). If your students are able to draw, have them draw the template themselves! If not, just find a cute template online! I just copy/pasted images from google 🙂

P for Pumpkin
Name spelling
Pumpkin
LEAF
TRUCK, because Tucker asked for it 🙂

BONUS Pumpkin Activities

It is important to intermingle sensory play with academic activities to build a strong foundation of the seasonal vocabulary! I have a list of my favorite October Picture Books and Halloween Picture books to share with you too!

Provide communication activities during these pumpkin sensory activities using these communication boards.