Pumpkin Smash

What DO you do with all of those fun, carved Halloween pumpkins after October 31st????

You smash them, of course.

A few weeks ago, as I solidified our October calendar, I noticed the Science Center of Iowa does a pumpkin-plosion and it looked liked a blast! Unfortunately, our schedule didn't allow time to attend. Fine, I'll come up with something fun of my own then. So today, a week after Halloween, on this cold day, we sent our pumpkins through the air from the top of the treehouse/play system. It could not have worked out better!

I went out in the backyard beforehand and quickly raked a huge pile of leaves for the kids to slide into after they had a turn to smash a pumpkin. While I raked, the kids played with the corn feed that wound up in the yard when the corn pool was done. All of the squirrels in the neighborhood LOVE us and the kids thought it was "so funny" the corn was so cold from being outdoors. To keep things safe (I mean, I really didn't want to have to call a parent and tell them that their child had a pumpkin dropped on their head), I had the kids line up oldest to youngest. Each child got to pick the pumpkin they wanted to throw off, plus it allowed me to help those that were a bit uncertain of my willingness to let them destroy the pumpkins.

After everyone had a turn, pumpkins were examined thoroughly, and more pumpkins were tossed over the side, they got to have some free play. This mostly consisted of them going down the slide and jumping in the leaves over and over again.


We had magnifying glasses out for the kids to examine the pumpkins closely with, but their hands were too cold to use them! We did bring a few pieces of broken pumpkin inside to look at later on in the day.



For those curious what we'll be doing with all those broken pumpkins.....they'll be going to our garden to let nature takes its course instead of going to the landfill. Who knows, maybe we'll get some pumpkins out of the deal next year??

This activity took some planning. I had to wait for a day it wasn't raining (or snowing), for the pumpkins to get softer, and I had to collect pumpkins. Luckily, my awesome daycare parents brought their pumpkins from Halloween and family members dropped some off as well. We had a collection of pumpkins going on our front porch for the last week!

Without going into politics at all, it was a late night for me watching election coverage until the early morning hours (or as some call it, the middle of the night). Not only did I require a large amount of caffeine just from staying up late, but this activity required me to be on my A game. Starbucks helped a lot in this area.