Secondary Handmade-Paper Pumpkins

I do this project with my Kindergartners and First Graders as a part of learning about Primary colors and Secondary colors. And golly-gee-willikers it ties in with Halloween*.

*You might think that I'm big on Halloween, but I definitely could care less. The kids, however, love love love love Halloween and so sometimes I oblige. As long as I can tie a project into our curriculum, I don't care what the subject matter is...even if it is HALLOWEEN!!!

Materials:
1 Sunday stack of newspapers for each child
1 top part of a styrofoam cup cut off (for the dekkle mould, it is the perfect size!)
1 sponge for each student
TONS of scrap colored paper:
red and yellow
yellow and blue
blue and red
old blender
bins for pulp
sta-flo starch (to keep it from sticking to the newspaper!)

I have some scraps paper (let's start with red/yellow and of course you just repeat this for each color...you will need the most of the orange--for the pumpkin--and you will obviously make orange first!) soaking in a bin of water. I put some red and yellow in the blender with some water, take some predictions on what color you will get, and blend away! Give each child a handful of pulp. Put the mould on top of the newspaper and fill it in. Press and blot with sponge. Teach the students how to squeeze excess water out of the sponge. Take the mould off.

Next will be to blend blue and red (for the facial features...if you don't care to make facial features, you could use the purple to make the textured lines of a pumpkin). Again, press and blot, press and blot.

Last will be the yellow and blue (for the green stem). Be sure the stem overlaps the pumpkin a bit so it attaches to it and they dry together!

Allow to dry (probably 24-48 hours unless you put them outside in the sun) and they should peel right off the newspaper. The starch will make this happen!

We glued our pumpkins onto black paper, added stars and fringed grass and they look GREAT! The kids love this, I could make a curriculur tie-in, and it's "recycling". A win on all fronts! Have fun!