Pumpkins, pumpkins - everywhere! Mrs Clarkson entered us into a pumpkin carving competition with Bellway Housing for Halloween. They kindly donated 30 pumpkins for the children to get creative with.

 

As always, the children's imagination and enthusiasm impressed me and some of their designs were fantastic! We worked together as a team, with Mrs Collins and Mrs Reeves cutting off the lid, the children scooping and scraping the inside and drawing their design and then the adults cutting out the designs with sharp knives.

 

We were very mindful to not leave the pumpkin flesh or seeds in the wood because pumpkins are not natural to woodland and can make wildlife (especially hedgehogs) very poorly. If you carve pumpkins at home, make sure to recycle them with your food waste when you have finished.

 

When children were not busy scooping out their pumpkins, they enjoyed collecting more chestnuts for role play in the mud kitchen, playing on the swing and being creative with sticks.