Five Little Pumpkins
Submitted by Karen Epley on Oct 12, 2019
In this activity, the Halloween poem "Five Little Pumpkins" is used to work on counting, matching, fine motor skills, and visual attention. The image on the right shows a pumpkin with press-on light to make it glow, and 5 mini pumpkins velcroed to an All-in-One Board with switch for story. Objects for door, tree, shoe, and sun are also pictured.
Materials:
- orange pumpkin bucket
- numbers 0-5 cut out and covered with different colors of mylar
- shoe
- sun prop
- press-on light
- APH All-in-One Board
- 5 mini pumpkins
- tree and door made from cardstock
Procedure:
Begin with the poem:
5 little pumpkins sitting by a door, 1 rolled away and now there are 4.
4 little pumpkins sitting by a tree, 1 rolled away and now there are 3.
3 little pumpkins sitting by a shoe, 1 rolled away and now there are 2.
2 little pumpkins sitting in the sun, 1 rolled away and now there is 1.
1 little pumpkin looking for fun!
- Record the poem on a Step-by-Step switch.
- Students take turns pressing the switch to play the poem.
- Students take turns taking one pumpkin off and dropping it in the pumpkin bucket.
- Ask students to find the various objects and numbers and set them up on the All-in-One Board.
Variations:
-
Light up a jack-o-lantern and encourage children with low vision to locate it and reach out to touch it. - 5 Little Bats, skeletons, spiders, eyeballs and more to follow this month!
