Gortnahoe Playschool get creative for Halloween

With Halloween fast approaching, one Tipperary pre-school had a novel idea to engage their kids and educate them around the age-old Irish tradition of pumpkin carving and growing.

Gortnahoe Playschool decided last year that, rather than buying pumpkins for the festival each year, they and their kids could grow their own in preparation for 2022, and they have made great use out of the project according to the Manager of the school, Jennifer Ryan.

“We bought pumpkins last Halloween and carved it out and made some lovely figures, but what we did too was keep the seeds from them and every child chose a seed which we stored.

“So we stored them and waited to plant the saplings around March to make a pumpkin garden and once they got enough growth before finishing up school for the summer, we planted the pumpkins,” she said.

The playschool practises a developmentally appropriate play-based curriculum, supported by Aistear the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework, encompassing the children’s well- being, Communication, Identity and Belonging and Exploring and Thinking.

The idea behind this project was to show the kids of the Bright Start class the importance of being able to grow their own vegetables and show them where and how pumpkins grow, rather than simply buying new ones each year, and Ms. Ryan says that the kids have really enjoyed caring for and keeping an eye on them.

“Now, since those kids have been moved into the bigger class, they’ve been able to watch the pumpkins grow and the kids are really proud of them,” she said.

Each pumpkin is made great use of by the students at Gortnahoe Playschool with some really interesting uses being adopted by the staff to get the most out of each pumpkin the students have kept.

The pumpkin patch was aimed to provide many ways to engage children in learning and growing, giving the kids the freedom to explore and pick their own pumpkins gives them a sense of independence and pride. Each child will take their own pumpkin home for Halloween.

“We felt it was a nice idea, that rather than buying the pumpkins we could grow them, and highlight the lifecycle of them to the kids.

“We even made an autumn tree with the remaining seeds we had left, putting different coloured leaves on them.

“We made pumpkin soup, and we even made a kind of sensory box with some of the pumpkins so the kids could squash them, smell them, and play around with them.

“We have a great team of staff each bringing different features and benefits to incorporate in our curriculum, which makes a huge difference.

“We are all surrounded in a positive, happy environment.

“They’re so proud of their little pumpkins everytime they walk by them in the morning coming into the school, which is great to see” she finished.