October 5, 2010

Literary Pumpkins

We don't celebrate Halloween (just our choice), but we do like to decorate pumpkins
in a non-halloween way.
 
Last fall, I wanted to find a creative way to combine pumpkin decorating
with something the children were doing in their academic lessons. 

This birthed our literary pumpkins.
 
The basic idea is to decorate a pumpkin
 to look like a character from a favorite book,
or a book that has recently been read.

Our oldest son is a fan of the Larryboy chapter books. 
He chose to decorate not one, but two pumpkins,
and created Larryboy and the villain, Iceberg. 
(OK, one is not technically a pumpkin,
but we had to supplement to get the right shape for Larryboy.)



Our oldest daughter had just finished reading Charlotte's Web
She decided to make a pumpkin into Wilbur and paint his crate green.

   

Wilbur's crate would not be complete without it's Zuckerman gold letters and Charlotte on top.


Naturally, Charlotte's web reads 'Humble;' our favorite web word
Charlotte made for Wilbur.



This year, we have several ideas we like...

a tiny Pilgrim with a huge pumpkin for his burdensome bag
from Pilgrim's Progress

or

a very blue pumpkin with affixed blue arms, legs, and head to be
Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
(depicting the scene where she tries the chewing-gum meal,
and expands like a giant blueberry)

or

perhaps another character will lend itself well to our
literary pumpkin theme...

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This post has been linked to Kids Get Crafty at Red Ted Art,
 Walls of Art Wednesday at Pink and Orange Coffee,
and Read Explore Learn at JDaniel4's Mom.

12 comments:

  1. Visiting form the Homeschool Hop! Cute idea. We don't celebrate Halloween either. This year we bought some small pie pumpkins and cooked them. My daughter was impressed to see how something so big could be turned into something so small. :)

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  2. What a fantastic idea! I am going to see if my girls would like to do this!

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  3. I'm stopping by from the Homeschool Hop. I love this idea!! You can really do a lot with it.

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  4. I like Wilbur and his crate! So cute! We also don't celebrate Halloween, but we love fall and pumpkins!

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  5. The Charlotte's web crate is so neat! We also do not participate in Halloween. Thanks for sharing all your creative projects!

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  6. Very cute!

    I like Fall because I can decorate (non Halloweeny) and keep it till Thanksgiving.

    Have a great week!

    Robin~♥

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  7. This are brilliant! Love the piggy! How fun and original!

    Thanks for linking up to Kids Get Crafty! Very much appreciated!

    Maggy

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  8. Love that Larryboy! Wilbur, too. This is a very cute idea. My daughter would love it. She would probably make one of Mr. Popper's Penguins. ;0)

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  9. Love this idea, we also don't do Halloween.
    When I was working at the Alliance Day Care, we had a little poem (or was it a prayer) with each part cutting out the pumpkin, with crosses and hearts and such. gotta look for it. One Halloween I made copies of it and handed it out to trick or treaters.

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  10. Oh I love all the ideas! We don't celebrate Halloween either, which is why we've also been tying in books w/ spiders and pumpkins! Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting. :)

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  11. I love the idea. tying it in with books just simply brilliant.

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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