Pumpkin Counting Fingerplay

💡 About this activity

🎯 Learning objectives

• Follow a countdown from five to zero with adult support.
• Lower one finger to represent each pumpkin that rolls away.
• Join the rhyme with words, sounds or gestures.

🧺 What you need

• Printed page
• Scissors
• Paper for five strips
• Tape

👣 How to do it

1. An adult cuts out the five pumpkins and five strips of paper.
2. Make a loose loop with each strip and tape a pumpkin to each loop.
3. Invite your child to put a loop on each finger of one hand.
4. Count the fingers together, starting with one.
5. Say the first verse and show your child how to lower one finger when a pumpkin rolls away.
6. Continue the rhyme, inviting your child to lower one finger with each verse.
7. At the end, look at the closed hand and say together that no pumpkins are left by the gate.

🍎 Teaching suggestions

• Speak slowly and pause so your child can choose which finger to lower.
• If moving individual fingers is difficult, place the pictures on a table and move one away with each verse.
• Welcome gestures, looks and sounds as ways to participate.
• In a group, each child can use their own hand while everyone says the rhyme together.
• Connect the game to everyday life by counting fruit or large toys too.

🔀 Variations

💬 Talk about it

• What happened to the pumpkins?
• How can we show that one pumpkin rolled away?
• Where do you think the pumpkins went?
• What did your hand look like at the end?

👀 What to look for

• Notice whether your child follows any of the numbers or gestures in the countdown.
• Watch for your child lowering a finger or moving a picture away with each verse, with or without help.
• Notice whether your child joins in through words, sounds, gestures or looks.