If you have a toddler at home, you might be wondering how to make the Halloween season toddler-friendly. Not everybody is fond of the idea of pumpkin carving with a toddler. It gets way too messy and might be too dangerous using carving knives around a little one. But pumpkin decorating is a tradition that should be included in Halloween activities for toddlers, right?
Precisely for this reason, I’ve decided to take a different route this year.
As soon as we brought our mini pumpkins home from the pumpkin patch, I knew there had to be a better way of decorating them with a toddler.
So I turned to paint.
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Halloween activities for toddlers
Painting a pumpkin is one of the easiest Halloween activities for toddlers. If you don’t mind your little one using finger paint, then it’s almost a guarantee she will have a blast!
So far we have mostly used watercolors for painting with our 2-year-old toddlers. And we draw with crayons and colored pencils almost daily. But as far as fingerpainting, our boys are quite new to it (unless painting with mustard and mashed potatoes count).
Painting these easy toddler pumpkins with their hands and fingers was a fun experience, however. And yes, they had to take a bath afterward.
But nonetheless, this is how we did it:
First, I prepped the pumpkins while the boys were napping.
I used painters’ tape to make simple faces.
Then I chose only three colors for this Halloween craft for kids: purple, black, and white. Darker colors make the bright orange pop out really nicely in the end.
After a quick research, I also found out that adding a bit of school glue or dish soap to tempera paint will make it more durable.
So I added a few drops of Elmer’s glue to each paint bowl (bonus points if you have the glitter glue!) But just a few drops, really.
And then I let my boys loose!
Because they are only 2 and this was their real first experience of decorating pumpkins, I had to show them what to do at first. But they picked it up real fast.
When finished, let the pumpkins get dry.
Once they are COMPLETELY dry, you can slowly and gently pull off the painter’s tape. I actually used a toothpick to grab the edges of the tape lightly. If you pull them too fast, the surrounding paint will come off as well.
Halloween Printable Decoration
If you like the framed Halloween art used on the last picture, make sure to download your free copy here! Just click on the image below and print. Easy-peasy!
Final thoughts
I believe these easy toddler pumpkins can be used at home or in a classroom setting for easy preschool Halloween crafts. We enjoyed making them very much despite the fact the boys got so messy. They came out quite cute and most importantly, the boys had a lot of fun in the process.
Check out my other holiday articles
