Pumpkins * Halloween

Jack O' Lantern

Jack O' Lantern, Jack O' Lantern,
Your light it doth shine,
Sitting up upon the window
And your light it is mine.

Once you were a yellow pumpkin
Sitting on the sturdy vine,
Now you are my Jack O' Lantern,
And in the night you will shine.

~Festivals Family and Food


Carving our pumpkin!!

We talked about pumpkins.  Growing huge pumpkins, like the ones we saw in Stillwater.  We read the Laura Ingals Wilder story of  Farmer Boy.  When Almanzo grows a milk fed pumpkin. 


We made pumpkin and scarecrow crafts.

We hung all our decorations in our windows to scare the neighbors.

On Monday we made pumpkin bread for snack.


We also, made our really scary headless scarecrow

We saw a woodpecker right out our door.
We watched him for awhile pecking at our neighbors fence.

All we have left on our ongoing bird chart now is a blue jay and a cardinal.





Tuesday is a shorter day for us because Matthew has a private skate lesson in the afternoon.  It is really nice to have the flexibility to due things like that.

We still managed to squeeze in making our BOO cookies.

Then, we went BOOING with them.

Booing is a new tradition we are starting for this time of year.  First, we made a treat to share.  Then,  we put them in baggies and attached a poem.

The air is cool, the season fall,
Soon Halloween will come to all.
Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...
Tricky witches at your door.
The spooks are after things to do,
In fact a spook brought this "Boo" to you!


Happy Halloween




Then, we left them as a secret treat for our neighbors!

 

We carved more pumpkins.

Then we toasted the seeds.

Pour water over the seeds and pulp.
The seeds will float away from the pulp in the water.
into a sauce pan add

1/2 c. pumpkin seeds
2cups water
1T. salt
simmer for 10 minutes

drain, place seeds and olive oil on a pan
bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes




We also talked about candle light.  How bright candle light can be.  How we use candles for our Jack O' Lanterns.  Then we tried our weekly watercolor by candle light.

We received a Halloween activity book from our grandma Judy and we did all the activities this week too.  They were fun.

Thank you Grandma :)


Here is a link to everything pumpkin in case anyone needs some ideas...
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/pumpkins/history.cfm