Halloween is approaching fast and one of the best parts about the holiday is decorating for it! Spooky cobwebs, cackling witches and bright-eyed jack-o-lanterns really help to set the mood during this eerie, yet fun holiday season! Getting to the store or pumpkin patch doesn’t always fit into our day to day schedules; this holiday set the mood at your house with our pumpkin craft! These paper bag pumpkins are super cute, easy to make, and you don’t have to worry about them going rotten!

Materials:

-Paper lunch sack

-Newspaper

-Orange tempera paint

-Green tempera paint

-Black tempera paint

-Paintbrush

-Paper plate

-Rubber band/twist tie (optional)

-Smock to protect your child’s clothes

-Visuals

Visuals

When using the visuals, try to focus on the specific visuals that help your child:

-Understand

-Attend to the activity

-Create joint attention

-Participate within the activity

-Use their social communication language (i.e., requesting: “I want green paint,” taking turns: “My turn for newspaper,” commenting: “Look”, etc.).

-Follow directions

Point to the pictures as you talk.

Steps

First, open the paper bag and have your child help you stuff crumpled newspaper inside. Fill the paper bag about halfway; 5-6 sheets of newspaper should do the trick!

Twist the top of the brown paper bag. Here you can tie the bag using yarn or a twist tie. If you twist it tightly, the bag will stay on its own!

Using the orange and green paint, help your child paint his or her paper bag pumpkin.

Hint: Tempera paint works best because the colors are thick enough to withstand the absorption of the paper bag.

Last, use the black tempera paint to paint a face on the jack-o-lantern. Your child can paint a happy pumpkin, a sad pumpkin, an excited pumpkin, or even a scared pumpkin- the options are endless!

Throughout the month you can use your different pumpkins as additional visuals when talking about your feelings!

Hint: This project can be split up over two days. On the first day, paint the body of the pumpkin; on the second day, paint the face! This makes for a great opportunity to talk about temporal concepts with your child: “Yesterday we painted the pumpkin’s body. Today, we will paint the pumpkin’s face!”

Enjoy preparing for Halloween through art! Your child will be having so much fun, they won’t even realize they are working on vocabulary, social skills, cognitive skills, fine motor skills and more!