Once Upon A Book ~ Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch

 

Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch by Alyssa Capucilli

Summary: This is a cute little story about Biscuit the puppy, who ventures to a pumpkin patch! Of course he gets into a little mischief and finds some fun surprises along the way! The Biscuit books are a series of stories written by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, I encourage you to check out her others in the series! They’re great for toddlers ages 0-4.

Bible Verse: Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:37-38

Math Skills:

Everyday we count our calendar, and just for fun I purchased themed calendar day numbers. Of course we were excited to pull out our pumpkins with fall here!

Size Sorting: The Teeny Tot is working on learning Large, Medium, and Small in relation. At first she was just putting all of the sizes onto the game board, but as we worked together she started to get the hang of which went where. When we were all done, I asked her to point to the smallest pumpkin, then the largest, then the medium one.

One-To-One Correspondence: This is my pumpkin magnet page. It’s wonderful for working on one-to-one correspondence skills along with dexterity. Of course the object is to place one magnet in each white dot. You can also use this activity with Do-A-Dot Markers, see-through plastic disks, cheerios, or whatever you have on hand!

Pumpkin Counting: I used some large pumpkin cards I found at Lakeshore Learning for this activity. On each pumpkin I added some dots, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 dots etc. I instructed her to count the dots, then put that amount of mini-clothes pins on the pumpkin. She did a great job counting these, and adding the mini-clothes pins as well! (Mini-clothes pins can be found at most hobby stores!)

Pumpkin Puzzle Skills: Puzzles are great for logical thinking skills! This one was a little difficult for her since I’d cut it into 12 pieces instead of 6, so she needed a little help.

Color Matching: I cut these cute little pumpkins in half and had her match them back together. I also instructed her a little bit by saying “Let’s do the blue one next, how about the pink one, etc”. It’s great for logical thinking (having to match the shapes together to form the whole pumpkin shape) and for color recognition as well.

Fine-Motor-Skills & Dexterity

Pumpkin Lacing: This is by far one of her favorite ideas. She loves to “sew”! She skipped a few holes here and there, but she did a great job over all! The lacing is great for eye-hand coordination practice as well as dexterity.

Cutting Practice: What toddler doesn’t love to cut! I’m amazed at how much better the Teeny Tot is getting with this activity. She was previously holding her scissors upside down with her fingers up instead of her thumb. She’s now holding the paper successfully with her left hand and using proper cutting technique with her right. She doesn’t always stay on the lines, but with repetition she will make improvements.

Do-A-Dot Page: Here we are working on P for Pumpkin do-a-dot page. She absolutely LOVES these Do-A-Dot Markers, it is by far one of her favorite activities. And it’s not just fun! You can direct your child to use a certain color, also show them to do 1 dot in each circle which works on one-to-one correspondence as well as fine-motor-skills!

Good ole’ fashioned Coloring! Everyone loves to color, and the Teeny Tot is no different! She actually does quite well at this, she’s very meticulous and careful when coloring. And I can definitely say she’s getting better at staying in the lines and controlling her hand movements so she’s not “scribbling” anymore, but instead coloring purposefully.

Art Project:

I didn’t get a chance to do this myself, but wanted to share it with you because I thought it was such a great idea! Click below for instructions on this painted pumpkin seed craft from the  Craft-Making website!

If you’re interested in the pumpkin activities, click here for links to download the Pumpkin Preschool Printables!

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)? Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!