Pumpkin Munchkins

Something that blows my mind is the creativity of the young mind. As previously mentioned, I work at a daycare. I'm not necessarily the "teacher." I am more like the afternoon care taker. I help my co-workers when they need help supervising the children or if help is needed for a particular craft. This morning, I went in extra early to help one of my co-workers teach the kids about pumpkins. It was an incredibly hands-on activity which is why she needed my assistance. It is "P" week at the school so "pumpkins" were the morning's activity. It was my duty to be the photographer and help with any messes while my co-worker taught the children what a pumpkin is like on the inside. She purchased pumpkins (which are only $3.88 if you live near a Walmart) and began gutting it while the kids entered. She laid out towels and plastic for the kids to sit on so we didn't make a giant mess for the janitor to clean up. As the children sat down on the towels, I handed them each a bowl. My co-worker distributed the "guts" and seeds of the pumpkin and told the children to play with it and determine what the pumpkin innards were like. The fascinating thing about this part of the activity was that the children absolutely did not want to touch it! It was almost as if they were scared of the contents. Eventually, my co-worker and I persuaded the kids to touch the seeds and things. It was just so weird that the children wanted to have nothing to do with the messy pumpkin. Kids love making messes! I think that maybe this was a relatively new concept and they did not know quite what the object was. Their parents probably let the older children do the pumpkin gutting and carving so these kids had little idea what was in front of them. Being kids, they were more excited about the upcoming craft and lost interest in playing with the gooey orange stuff. Eventually, we all made a cute little pumpkin out of a brown paper bag, streamer, orange and white ribbon, and pumpkin seeds. Now the children can go home and show Mom and Dad how they were little Pumpkin Munchkins today. It was a lot of fun and not all that hard to clean up. WARNING: If you wish to attempt this craft, make sure you have help.
:)