Pumpkin Faces

It's funny to me the reactions you'll get from certain activities. Often times I think Charis will love something and she either has no interest or she thinks it's okay (which can be frustrating when you put time and effort into getting an activity together). Then I'll throw together a last minute idea and she loves it. This was one of those moments. For this reason I'll try anything at least once. If she's not interested now, my efforts aren't wasted. Perhaps in a few months she'll be interested. Either way, she's getting introduced to lots of new skills presented many different ways. This is a good way to work on fine motor skills, shapes (oval, half moon, triangle, circle, square), concentration, and focus!


Ages: 18 months (with help). My 28 month old did this almost unassisted once I showed her what to do.

Materials:

• Sheets of foam or construction paper in black and orange


• Scissors (for you)


• Glue
  
• Cotton swabs


• Container to put glue in (I used a clean babyfood jar lid)


• Plastic sandwich bags (3)


• Magnetic tape (optional)
  

Prep:

• Put small amount of glue in lid


• Cut out large and small pumpkins from orange foam


• Cut out lots of different eye, nose, and mouth shapes


• Sort eyes, noses, and mouths into sandwich bags
  

Activity:

1. Do the first pumpkin (without using glue). Show them how to choose 2 eyes. I asked her "How many eyes should our pumpkin have?" Two is normally the answer, unless your child wants to make a cyclops or another creative idea. I also tried to involve shapes, asking "Are you going to choose the square or triangle nose? Do you want the oval or half moon shaped mouth?"
   
2. I put the eyes down on the pumpkin and showed her how to dip the cotton swab and put glue on the back of the eyes. I then explained that the white part (the part with the glue) has to touch the orange pumpkin. Repeat with nose and mouth.

Once we did one together, I let her do it on her own.

We put magnets on the back and put them up on the refrigerator.She liked this so much we ran out of pumpkins before she was ready to quit. The (unassisted) finished product: