How to Host a Pumpkin Party

A Pumpkin Party is a wonderful way to celebrate Halloween with young children as the focus of this party is on is on the pumpkin itself, avoiding the more ghoulish aspects of the holiday. The party is appropriate anytime in the fall and even makes a great addition to a Thanksgiving celebration.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Orange construction paper
• Pumpkins for each child
• Markers
• Salad oil
• Salt
• Choice of refreshments

1. Send out the invitations. Fold a strip of orange construction paper five times and cut a pumpkin shape, but leave them joined at the fold. Unfolding the strip will give you a string of five pumpkins attached to each other. On each section write the following: You are invited to a Pumpkin Party (date and time, place) Given by (your name/phone # for RSVP). The day of the party, decorate your party room with pumpkins, orange streamers and balloons and any other Halloween decor you'd like.
2. When all the guests arrive, start with an ice breaker: Teach kids the following old nursery rhyme. “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eaterHad a wife and couldn’t keep her.Put her in a pumpkin shellAnd there he kept her very well.”Then have everyone stand in a circle and say the rhyme, passing around a small pumpkin. When the last word of the rhyme is reached, the child holding the pumpkin sits down but is still in the game. The pumpkin continues to be passed until the last person is standing.
3. Make pumpkin houses. Provide each child with a cantaloupe-sized pumpkin. Next, hollow out the pumpkins from the bottom, pulling out the meat and reserving the seeds. Provide markers and have everyone make their pumpkins into houses by drawing on doors, windows, and so on. Make suggestions for extras like flower boxes and checkerboard roofs and details like people or animals looking out the windows.
4. Roast pumpkin seeds while the houses are being made. Rinse the seeds in cold water. Spread them out on an oiled cookie sheet and lightly salt the seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. Let them cool slightly and divide them up into sandwich bags for kids to munch on or take home.
5. Serve refreshments: There are lots of appropriate choices. Select two or three of the following depending on how much preparation time you can spare: pumpkin pie from the bakery or homemade, pumpkin muffins or bread, pumpkin ice cream or pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies. Accompany with an orange-colored drink mix that you can call “pumpkin juice.” For recipes and pumpkin trivia, see Resources.

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