Punching Pumpkins

I had grand plans with the project, which turned into an epic fail for an activity with kids. My initial plan was to follow what we did, but add a step of putting Christmas lights in the holes. It didn’t turn out that way – but what we did was fun and had some great skill practice in it!

We bought a medium sized pumpkin at the grocery store, cut off the top and hollowed it out. We carved pumpkins last year but I think Landon was too young to really remember the whole process. He was so excited to open up the pumpkin when I first cut the top off.

After “gutting” out the pumpkin (and saving all the seeds for a later project), I made small dots on the pumpkin in the shape of a face that Landon helped to “design”.

I didn’t make them very deep, just a small surface puncture, spaced about  1 1/2 – 2 inches apart. Then I gave Landon a hammer and a nail. I used the largest nail I could find in the garage. I was crazy brave enough to hold the nail while Landon tapped it into the pumpkin (this was not possible to get a picture of). He did about 2 holes and decided that the hammer was too heavy. He went into the play room and got one of his little plastic hammers. Lighter, yes. Strong enough to drive a real nail, no. I finished punching in all the holes, he “helped” by pounding his nail with his plastic hammer into the already punched holes.

Now my plan (in my brain before we even started the project) was to put Christmas lights in the pumpkin to make it sort of a light bright. The holes were WAY too small. Plan B? I couldn’t find anything other than a pencil that was large enough to make the holes bigger (other than getting the drill out… which I contemplated) I tried it for a few holes and it just wasn’t working out.

So why the post about the epic fail? First to show that everyone has great plans that flop, but I think that this would work out as a fun project for an older child (perhaps 4-5 or older) that could use a real hammer for longer than 2 holes worth. I would just take out the Christmas light addition plan and make it all about hammering nails into a pumpkin. It’s a great lesson in hand-eye coordination. You could even leave the nails in the pumpkin for a different look.