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Pumpkin week is finally here! We have a jam packed week full of pumpkin activities and ideas for all ages. Check out our entire week’s worth of pumpkin fun all with a speech and language focus. We love doing hands-on activities to support language, vocabulary, and more with both our own kids and students. Be sure to keep scrolling to grab your FREEBIE pumpkin sorting and describing activity below too!
Pumpkin Themed Activities
So we decided to smash out all of these simple and easy pumpkin activities with our kids in one day. We may be crazy; however, we had a ton of fun. While we definitely got everything in, we recommend choosing one or two activities to complete in a day. (Otherwise, plan extra time for a nap and a glass of wine afterwards!)
- Make It Monday
- Take A Trip Tuesday
- Water Wednesday
- Thinking Thursday
- Foodie Friday
- Scavenger Hunt Saturday
- Sensory Sunday
Too many other things going on this fall? Don’t stress! Pick only a couple of activities, or do it all. Incorporating vocabulary and language into even just one activity can help increase your child’s retention and application of concepts. Most importantly, just have fun together! For all the SLPs out there, these activities can call be modified to target a variety of goals!
Make It Monday
First up, we painted some mini pumpkins. This was a SUPER easy way to bust out the paints and get creative without a huge mess. Grab a cardboard box lid or something similar and place a piece of paper inside. Squirt a few blobs of paint. We choose fall colors, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand! Put a small or mini pumpkin on top of the paper and simply roll it around to spread the paint. The kids were so excited to not only have a pretty picture, but also a painted pumpkin at the end!
For my students, I printed their target sounds from our Pumpkin Seeds Articulation Craft and placed it in the cardboard lid. As they each took turns rolling the pumpkin in the paint, they practiced their sounds. Once done, I let their words dry until the next session. They were able to cut out their painted seeds and glue them on to their paper pumpkin to drill practice even more and take home to share. They really enjoyed this pumpkin painting speech activity!
Take A Trip Tuesday
Of course we had to take a trip to the pumpkin patch! Luckily, my parents have a bit of property fully equipped with their very own pumpkin patch. We let the kids romp around in the vines to find their perfect pumpkin. So much spontaneous and hilarious language during this very unstructured activity!
Here is just a snippet of what we heard!
- “Too heavy!”
- “Ew! Look at that one!”
- “That’s my pumpkin!”
- “Get it, Daddy!”
- “I found one!”
- “Oof! I got it!”
- “My pumpkin.”
- “No. That’s my pumpkin.”
While some of our students are fortunate enough to visit a pumpkin patch with friends or family, some unfortunately are not. So we love bringing the pumpkin patch to them! During a large group language session, I brought several varying sizes and colors of pumpkins.
My students enjoyed picking them up, feeling the outside, tapping on them, and describing them. We were able to illicit lots of language and vocabulary by bringing some pumpkins into the classroom. Plus those that were able to go to an actual pumpkin patch retold their experiences to the staff and their peers!
Water Wednesday
Ok so if cramming all of these activities into one day didn’t make us beyond crazy, then this next pumpkin activity tipped the scale for sure! We made an erupting volcano pumpkin! But it was so worth it.
The kids loved this pumpkin activity which worked out great because you can erupt the pumpkin over and over if needed. All you need is a hollowed out or carved pumpkin, warm water, baking soda, dish soap, food coloring, and white vinegar.
First place your pumpkin in a space that you don’t mind getting wet/dirty or place it in a large container. Pour a little bit of warm water to coat the bottom of the pumpkin then add 1 c. of baking soda. Next add a drop or two of dish soap (as this will make the effect last longer) followed by the food coloring of choice. Once ready, add 1-3 c. of white vinegar then stand back!
At school, I used a mini pumpkin, but the effect was still the same! With my older students, we made predictions and discussed what we saw once all of the ingredients were mixed. Much like our own kids, their minds were blown! Such a fun, but easy pumpkin activity to add to your repertoire (if you don’t mind a little mess).
Thinking Thursday
For our book this week, Mandy read Splat The Cat And The Pumpkin-Picking Plan with both her daughters and students. In this story, Splat the Cat heads to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin for his mom. While there, he uses lots of describing words and does lots of fun fall activities. This is a super cute story to target describing, verb/noun identification, and WH question comprehension.
Want more fall book fun? Read: Best Fall Books To Use For BOTH Speech & Language Therapy!
To go along with this pumpkin adventure, Mandy created this awesome Pumpkin Size Sorting & Categorizing Activities FREEBIE! Students can discuss and sort pumpkins by size just like Splat The Cat does in the story. Perfect companion activity for this pumpkin and could easily be used with many other seasonal stories.
Be sure to grab your Pumpkin Size Sorting & Categorizing Activities FREEBIE here. Your students will love sorting pumpkins by size, coloring by size, and cutting and pasting pumpkins from smallest to biggest! There are ten different worksheets included!
Foodie Friday
Mmmm who loves pumpkin pie? We do! However it was collectively decided that baking a pie was a bit too much on our pumpkin filled day so Mandy whipped up some simple pumpkin pie cups for the kids. Best part? No baking required!
Grab crushed graham crackers, vanilla pudding cups, a can of pumpkin puree, and some whipped cream. (We may or may not have used an entire can of whipped cream!) Layer the ingredients as pictured and enjoy!
Sadly, we are no longer able to use food in school due to COVID, but we are hoping that will change soon. But for those of you lucky enough to cook in school, we hope you and your students enjoy this recipe. We certainly did! So many opportunities to work on direction following, life skills, sequencing, and more.
Scavenger Hunt Saturday
We are back with another engaging vocabulary scavenger hunt this week! Check out our Pumpkin Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt here. Just print the vocabulary cards and hide around the room or speech office. Have your students find and check off each word from the list. My son loved taking a laminated checklist to his grandparents’ pumpkin patch and searching for items there too!
You can also print the colorful pumpkin patch scene and search for the vocabulary within the picture. I like to project the scene onto the Smartboard for students to search and circle each word as a class. So many ways to use this super versatile scavenger hunt so be sure to grab one for your sessions now!
Sensory Sunday
Mandy made the BEST edible pumpkin sensory bin for her kids. Empty a box of cocoa krispies into a bin as well as a few pumpkin candies. With some scoops and muffin cups, her daughters were able to play in the “pumpkin patch” plus sneak in a few tasty bites too!
To go along with the pumpkins, she printed out the familiar 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting On The Gate story along with a picture of a gate from Differentiation Station Creations on TPT. This freebie is perfect for pairing with lots of different pumpkin activities including this yummy sensory bin!
Phew! We made it through our pumpkin activity extravaganza! Our kids and students had SO MUCH FUN with these pumpkin activities and we hope you do too. We will be posting videos of the activities in action on our social media accounts so be sure to follow us on Instagram and Pinterest! You don’t want to miss out on all of the pumpkin fun!
Happy fall, SLPs!
Talking Mama Bears