Easy painted Jack-o-Lanterns: if you’re looking for easy Halloween crafts for kids, this jack-o-lantern art project is great for young children.
- Ages: toddler, preschooler, Kindergarten, Grade 1
- Skills, painting, cutting, gluing, fine-motor
I love an easy art project for toddlers and preschoolers and these painted jack-o-lanterns are about as easy as it can get. This is a fun little halloween craft that gets young children painting, cutting, gluing and creating!
You may also these ideas: Smoosh Painted Pumpkins, Smoosh and Stamp Pumpkins, Coffee Filter Pumpkin Sun Catchers Haunted Halloween Collage , Halloween Scratch Art
We crafted up these adorable jack-o-lanterns the other day. They were really easy to make, and a lot of fun. It was a great activity for strengthening cutting skills and fine motor skills and putting the faces of the jack-o-lanterns together, gluing everything in place, tested the children’s ability to recognize where to put their cut out pieces of paper in order to form a face.
Supplies needed:
- Black marker
- Orange paint
- scissors
- white paper
- glue
Instructions:
I used a black marker to draw a large pumpkin shape on some white cardboard, and set out some orange paint.
TIP: Insert a sandwich bag into a jar and pour your paint into that. There’s no messy jar to wash afterwards, and any leftover paint gets zipped up and kept for next time! I borrowed that brilliant idea from Exploring the Outdoor Classroom (pop over to see more super tips for organizing your play space).
While the Hooligans were painting, I talked about trying to stay inside the lines, which can be challenging for young ones. I ended up cutting the pumpkins out, so painting inside the lines really wasn’t important, but it was a good exercise anyway.
While the paint dried, we worked on the faces.
TIP: I feel it’s important to let them do as much as possible on their own, but asking them to cut out eyes, noses, and mouths, was a bit much to expect from them, so I asked them to draw the shapes on black paper with a light coloured crayon, and I cut them out, following their lines.
Then I cut strips of white paper for them, and they used the scissors to chop those strips up into teeth.
Glue it all together, and…..Ta-da….
Aren’t they cute?!!
More pumpkin crafts for toddlers and preschoolers:
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
Kierna Corr
These are so cute – and it looks like they really enjoyed making them 🙂
Kristin
Those are oh-so-cute! I love the white teeth. Glad the baggies worked out ;-). One more trick…if you are pouring your paint into trays, line them with foil!
-Kristin
Teach Preschool
I think they are very cute too! I saw almost the same idea on an art blog too and wanted to make them in my class. I still may:)
Mandi@BoredomBustingMommy
These look great!!! I would love to have some of these to hang up for our Halloween party! I’ll have to make some with my kids. 🙂
Melissa (@ChMuffinTree)
These are simply adorable! Love the teeth!
JDaniel4's Mom
I would love for you to link this post to my Halloween Traditions link up! These are so cute! I love the teeth.
Irmie
Thanks for this posting (and many others). My almost two year old LOVED making these and they are now taped up to the living room window, facing in so we can see them. He tells everyone who will listen that he made the pumpkin.
happyhooligans
That’s so sweet, Irmie! I’m glad he loved making them. So cute that he’s so proud of them. This was one of my favourites too!