Preschool Crafts

10 Pumpkin Crafts for Preschoolers (Easy Ideas)

10 pumpkin crafts for preschoolers, each with a picture and simple steps. Easy ideas for ages 3 to 5 using paper, paint, and glue.

Kindergarten Prep Team
Oct 11, 2026

October is pumpkin month, from the patch trip to the one going soft on the porch. Here are 10 crafts with pumpkins for preschool and for home, each with a picture, the supplies, and the steps, from a painted mini pumpkin to a paper plate jack-o-lantern.

A three-year-old paints a real mini pumpkin with a squeeze bottle, and it sits on the windowsill until November. A five-year-old cuts the jack-o'-lantern face and winds the yarn pumpkin alone. Halloween week and the week after.

Start here: three pumpkin crafts that always work

Painted mini pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5Painted mini pumpkinA real pumpkin, paint, nothing to cutApple stamped pumpkins, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5Apple stamped pumpkinsHalf an apple, orange paint, one pressPaper plate jack-o-lantern, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5Paper plate jack-o-lanternThe Halloween classic on a paper plate

10 pumpkin crafts for preschoolers, with pictures

Painted mini pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

1. Painted mini pumpkin

The child paints a real mini pumpkin with brushes, squeeze bottles or dot stickers and tape.

Easy for 3sProcess art

You need: 1 real mini pumpkin, paint, brush

How to make it
  1. Wash and dry the mini pumpkin.
  2. Your child paints thick patches and stripes over the top and sides.
  3. Leave the stem bare.
  4. Let it dry before touching.
Paper plate jack-o-lantern, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

2. Paper plate jack-o-lantern

The child paints a plate orange, adds a green stem and glues on black shapes for the face.

Paint and glue

You need: 1 white paper plate, orange poster paint, green paper, black paper, glue

How to make it
  1. Your child paints the plate orange. Let it dry.
  2. You cut a small green rectangle. Glue it on the top rim as a stem.
  3. Cut 3 black triangles and a crescent. Glue 2 triangles in the upper half as eyes and 1 in the middle as a nose.
  4. Glue the crescent in the lower half as a smiling mouth.
Handprint pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

3. Handprint pumpkin

An orange handprint or fist print becomes a pumpkin with a stem and vine added.

Handprint

You need: 1 sheet of white paper, orange paint, green marker

How to make it
  1. Paint your child's hand orange. Press it in the middle of the sheet with the fingers together pointing down and the palm at the top.
  2. Let it dry.
  3. Draw a short thick green stem coming up out of the palm.
  4. Add a curly vine off the stem.
Pumpkin feelings faces, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

4. Pumpkin feelings faces

The child gives paper pumpkins happy, sad, surprised and silly faces with shapes or markers.

Cut and glue

You need: orange paper, green paper, black construction paper, 1 sheet of white paper, glue stick

How to make it
  1. You cut 4 orange pumpkins and 4 small green stems. Your child glues the pumpkins on the white sheet in two rows, each with a stem on top.
  2. Cut black triangles, circles and mouth shapes.
  3. Your child glues a face on each pumpkin: a mouth turned up for happy, turned down for sad, a round mouth for surprised and a zigzag mouth for silly.
Pumpkin suncatcher, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

5. Pumpkin suncatcher

The child sticks orange and yellow tissue squares onto contact paper inside a pumpkin frame.

Collage

You need: orange paper, green paper, clear contact paper, orange and yellow tissue paper

How to make it
  1. You cut an orange pumpkin frame with the middle cut out.
  2. Stick it on a sheet of clear contact paper, sticky side up.
  3. Your child presses tissue squares onto the sticky middle until it is mostly covered.
  4. Cut a green stem and stick it on the top of the frame.
Apple stamped pumpkins, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

6. Apple stamped pumpkins

The child stamps half an apple in orange paint to make pumpkins, then adds stems and faces.

Easy for 3sStamping

You need: 1 sheet of white paper, 1 apple, orange paint, green marker, black marker

How to make it
  1. You cut the apple in half.
  2. Your child dips the apple half in orange paint and presses prints in a row.
  3. When dry, draw a short green stem on top of each print.
  4. Draw 2 dot eyes and a curved smile on each with the black marker.
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Tissue paper pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

7. Tissue paper pumpkin

The child scrunches orange tissue paper squares and glues them over a pumpkin outline, then adds a green stem.

Collage

You need: 1 sheet of white paper, orange tissue paper, green paper, glue

How to make it
  1. You draw a big round pumpkin outline on the paper.
  2. Your child tears the orange tissue into small pieces and crumples each one.
  3. Glue the pieces inside the outline, overlapping, until it is covered.
  4. Cut a green stem and a leaf and glue them at the top.
Pumpkin pie paper plate, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

8. Pumpkin pie paper plate

The child paints a plate wedge orange-brown, adds a crust edge and glues a cotton ball on top as cream.

Paint and glue

You need: 1 paper plate, orange-brown paint, light tan paint, 1 cotton ball, glue

How to make it
  1. You cut a quarter wedge from the plate like a pie slice.
  2. Your child paints the flat part orange-brown as filling.
  3. Paint the ridged rim at the wide end light tan as crust. Let it dry.
  4. Glue the cotton ball in the middle of the slice as whipped cream.
Yarn wrapped pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

9. Yarn wrapped pumpkin

The child winds orange yarn round and round a cardboard pumpkin shape.

Threading

You need: corrugated cardboard, orange yarn, green paper, glue

How to make it
  1. You cut a round pumpkin from cardboard. Tape the end of the yarn to the back.
  2. Your child winds the orange yarn around and around in all directions until the cardboard is mostly covered.
  3. Tuck the end under the wraps.
  4. Cut a green stem and leaf and glue them at the top.
Torn paper pumpkin, an easy pumpkin craft for preschoolers ages 3 to 5

10. Torn paper pumpkin

The child tears orange paper and fills a pumpkin outline mosaic-style.

Easy for 3sTear and glue

You need: 1 sheet of white paper, black marker, orange paper, green paper, glue stick

How to make it
  1. You draw a big pumpkin outline with a short stem in black marker.
  2. Your child tears orange paper into small pieces.
  3. Glue the pieces inside the outline like a mosaic.
  4. Tear a green piece and glue it on the stem.

Pumpkin crafts for toddlers: the 3 a young three can do

These 3 need no exact cutting and no small pieces, so a young three can do most of it alone: Painted mini pumpkin, Apple stamped pumpkins, Torn paper pumpkin.

Pumpkin crafts in October with a 3 year old

Orange paint stains, so an old T-shirt and a plastic cloth come first. Half an apple in orange paint makes a pumpkin print in one press, which is the least mess on the page.

A three year old can stamp, tear, scrunch tissue and paint a real mini pumpkin with a brush or dot stickers. Cutting the black face shapes, the pumpkin outline and the contact paper frame is your part.

The painted mini pumpkin goes on the porch step. The suncatcher goes in a window. The handprint pumpkin is the keepsake, so write the name and the year on it.

Make the pumpkin feelings faces the week you are talking about happy, sad and surprised, and the jack-o-lantern the week before Halloween so it can be on the door in time.

What you need for pumpkin crafts

Most of these use the same handful of supplies: green paper, white paper, glue, orange paper, orange paint, green marker, glue stick, black marker. Everything else is named on the craft it belongs to.

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