October belongs to the pumpkin, and a preschooler with a paper plate, a pot of orange paint and a pair of safety scissors can turn one into almost anything. This set keeps the making simple and the templates ready: ten pumpkin crafts that start from a single printed page — a plate to colour and cut, a handprint to press, a puppet to clip together, a lantern to fold. Nothing here needs a special supply run. Print the pack, pick a craft, and let the pumpkin patch grow across the table.
Paper Plate Pumpkins
Two of the ten templates start with a paper plate: the Paper Plate Pumpkin and the Paper Plate Jack-o’-Lantern. Colour the plate, cut out the pieces, then add a face from the Jack-o’-Lantern Faces Template. They are colour-and-cut crafts, so they suit the youngest makers in the set.
Handprint and Footprint Pumpkins
Four templates are press-and-print: the Handprint Pumpkin Patch, the Pumpkin Thumbprint Art, the Pumpkin Footprint Art and the Pumpkin Handprint Tree. Press a painted hand, foot or thumb onto the page and the pumpkin grows from the print. No craft needs paint if crayons or markers are used instead.
Pumpkin Puppets
The Clothespin Pumpkin Puppet and the Pumpkin Paper Bag Puppet turn the printed pumpkin into something to play with. The clothespin puppet needs an adult to help with folding and clipping, and the Pumpkin Paper Lantern is the fiddliest of the ten, so it suits ages 4 to 5 with adult help.
How to print (A4 and US Letter)
Print the PDF single-sided on A4 or US Letter, 100% scale. Cut along the dashed lines; colour first, then cut, then assemble. Paper plates, paper bags and clothespins are the only extra supplies; a glue stick and safety scissors cover the rest. Each template is one page, so a classroom can print one craft per child or the whole pack per table.
