In order to avoid some of the safety concerns that may be connected to carving real pumpkins, we decided to make paper maché pumpkins!  We had spent lots of time, in connection to both "Halloween" and "Fall" learning about pumpkins and how they grow.  The children had gathered a great deal of information, from a variety of sources and were ready to culminate our learning by making their own pumpkin/jack o'lantern!

     The paper maché process can very messy; however, the children are always delighted to participate and they are always particularly pleased with their finished product.  This project was no exception!  Even the parents/families that visited our classroom were excited to see the beautiful "pumpkin patch" that the children had created!

MATERIALS REQUIRED:
1.  One balloon per student (the "punch" balloons work best because they are round)
2.  Wallpaper Paste or A Flour And Water Mixture
3.  Newspaper Strips
4.  Empty Toilet Paper/Paper Towel Rolls (For the Stems)
5.  Orange Tempera Paint
6.  Green Tempera Paint
7.  Art foam (to make leaves)
8.  Pipe Cleaners (to make pumpkin "tendrils")
9.  Lots of Adult Helpers!!

MAKING THE PUMPKINS:
1.  Each of the children receives a blown up balloon, they begin to dip the newspaper strips into the wallpaper paste and they apply the newspaper strips to the balloon.  Apply as many layers as possible in order to make it strong and sturdy.  Towards the end of the process, attach a toilet paper roll (with newspaper strips and paste) to the top of the balloon to serve as the pumpkin stem).

2.  When complete (with lots of layers!) allow the paper machéd balloons to dry.  We let our balloons dry over the weekend to ensure that they had dried all the way through.

3.  Have the children paint their pumpkins orange and the stems green.  Allow them to dry thoroughly and add foam leaves and pipe cleaner "tendrils" to the stem.  Display the pumpkins in a pumpkin patch!  

4.  As Halloween approached, many of the children used black paint to paint jack o'lantern faces on one side of their paper machéd pumpkins!