Pins and Yarn Pumpkins

"Sharp pushpins for kids?!" you might ask incredulously. I asked the same thing when my daughter, who was 3 at the time, would come home from preschool with outlines dotted with pinholes. The teachers assured me that the kids did really well with them and developed their fine motor skills. I was sold (though I did watch carefully over the kiddos to make sure things were going safely and all pins were accounted for).

As for the combination of pins and yarn, I thought we could recreate geoboards on our pumpkins. Have you seen these? The combination of nails in boards along with rubber bands is geometric magic. Perhaps the kiddos could wrap yarn around their pushpins to create new patterns and shapes? So, we set up all of the materials, and off we went. My three-year-old began making a line of eyes, which evolved into a 100 eye pumpkin. Good thing we had a lot of pushpins!

Then, some yarn was weaved amongst the pushpins. I helped start and stop the yarn by simply wrapping it around the pin and pushing the pushpin all the way. (Frankly, he would have been completely happy with pushpins alone.)

My five-year-old created a little girl pumpkin with a flower in her hair.

On the back of her pumpkin, she made a heart and then weaved the yarn between the pushpins.

They were thrilled with their creations, and they're asking for more pumpkins to decorate!

Meanwhile, I had to try the technique myself. Here's my attempt at a spider web. Ooh--hexagon in the middle!