We were blessed with an abundance of pumpkins in the garden this year. With the arrival of fall, we’ve enjoyed doing a variety of activities with real pumpkins — perfect for lots of hands-on learning.
So far we’ve had fun making colorful crayon-drip pumpkins and even turned one into a pumpkin volcano.
This week we got out hammers and nails for a fun fall fine motor activity. We had lots of fun hammering nails in pumpkins!
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We have had fun with hammering nails into Styrofoam in the past. With so many pumpkins on our porch, I thought it would be a fun to decorate our pumpkins in a new way.
Hammering nails is a great activity for hand-eye coordination, and it provides proprioceptive sensory input, too!
Hammering Nails in Pumpkins — Fine Motor Activity
This activity doesn’t require much prep, and the list of materials needed is pretty short. You just need pumpkins, nails, and hammers. If you do the activity inside, you may want a plastic table cloth to contain the mess.
My kids were super excited when they saw the container of nails shining in the sunlight, sitting next to the bright orange pumpkins and wood mallet. I bet your kids will be excited, too!
Originally I had out a small, metal hammer and a toy wood mallet, but we soon discovered that the plastic hammer from my son’s toy workbench worked wonderfully when it came to hammering nails into the pumpkins. (And, because the head on the toy hammer is a bit wider than the little metal hammer, it was easier for my son to hit the nails.)
They had fun hammering until every nail was used, and when they finished we had a pretty funky-looking pumpkin to display.
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Tips for This Pumpkin Activity:
- It helps to have a hammer for each child. Who wants to wait to have a turn with the hammer? Toy hammers will work if you don’t want them to use the real one.
- Don’t have a bunch of pumpkins on hand? Let the kids paint them now, and then once the holiday is past, bring out the hammers and nails and let them go to town!
- Plan on carving the pumpkins? You can always do a bit of hammering once the pumpkins start to get a bit moldy.
- Want to turn it into an even more educational activity? Check out how we turned it into a math activity!
Other fun pumpkin activities from this site:
Katie (Growing Up KaterTot) says
I love this! I like your suggestion of painting the pumpkin and then hammering the nails in it. I think it’d make the silver pop! Visiting from #busydoinglife
Sarah says
What a great idea, my kids would love the hammering! #busydoinglife
helen gandy says
This actually looks alot of fun…….I reckon I would quite like to have a go hammering them in too 🙂 Popping over from #busydoinglife
OneMommy says
I admit, I’d like to hammer a few nails in one of the pumpkins, too.
Emma says
It looks like you guys have so much fun with pumpkins! My daughter would love this one. Last year I let her smash her pumpkin with a hammer after Halloween and she’s already asking for a repeat this year! Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful Spot!
OneMommy says
Oh — I bet mine would love to smash a few pumpkins this year!
Jamie @ Medium Sized Family says
That would definitely be a hit with my gang! If we happen upon a good pumpkin deal, we will have to give it a try.
OneMommy says
Oh, definitely do! It was a blast! We shared one pumpkin between them and it worked out fine; no need for a separate pumpkin for each.
Luke Strickland says
This looks great fun, sadly we’ve not had a great pumpkin harvest on our allotment this year, don’t think the weather’s been right over the summer… so once we’ve carved what we’ve got I’m not sure there’ll be much left to nail! Might have to save this for next year… #busydoinglife
OneMommy says
I hope you all have as much fun with it as we did. Mine are asking to hammer more nails this week! 🙂
Betsy says
What a fun way to keep kids busy and creating! My youngest would go to town with this! Thanks for sharing. #busydoinglife
OneMommy says
It was one of their favorite things we’ve done this fall so far. Definitely a winner!
Thanks for stopping by!