5 Little Pumpkins STEM Challenge

The Five Little Pumpkins book is a classic Halloween or pumpkin book to share with young kids for the fall season. Our 5 Little Pumpkins STEM activity is perfect to pair with it, too! Whether you have passed counting to 5, you can still try out this fun STEM challenge. We love pairing our pumpkin books with STEM activities; check it out!

5 Little Pumpkins STEM Activity

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate…You will see our supplies below, and you may notice we used paper tubes, clothespins, popsicle sticks, and woodcraft planks. You could also use pieces of cardboard, index cards, craft sticks, and Duplo or LEGO.

What else do you have in your recycling bin, from yogurt cups to styrofoam trays? There are many great options, and I specifically save them for these open-ended STEM activities.

Supplies:

• 5 little pumpkins (real or fake)
• Various building materials (see below)
• Glue, tape, pegs etc.
• Printable STEM Worksheets perfect for kindergarten and early elementary use!
• Five Little Pumpkins book! (Amazon Affiliate link)

The Challenge:

If you can, start by reading the book! Then, pose a question or two…Can you make 5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate? What would your gate look like?

Then, Invite your kids to design and build a gate to sit five little pumpkins on a gate!

Set-Up:

Put out various craft and recycling materials they can use for their STEM project.

Please step back and let your kids test their design skills, invent possible scenarios, and figure out what needs to be changed for their project to be more effective.

Use our Printable STEM Worksheets if your kids want to record their designs and the results.

My Best Tip For the 5 Little Pumpkins Challenge

Consider The Weight Of The Pumpkins!

The biggest challenge we had with this STEM challenge was the weight of the pumpkins. This was something my son picked up on after a couple of failed attempts.

The weight of the pumpkins and the lack of a stable base were not working, so adjustments had to be made. This is a fantastic part of the engineering design process.

Through these failures, he could analyze the situation more critically and come up with an answer. I could have told him the pumpkins were heavy, but I wanted him to figure it out. In the end, he came up with several solutions that supported the weight of the pumpkins (see below).

Below, you can see how my son successfully created a structure to support his five little pumpkins. For older kids, you can also use our handout on Questions for Reflection to discuss the STEM challenge.

 More Fun STEM Activities With Pumpkins

You don’t need to celebrate Halloween to enjoy pumpkin science activities. Try one or all of the ideas below!

• Pumpkin Volcano
• Pumpkin Oobleck
• Crystal Pumpkins
• Pumpkin Geoboard
• Pumpkin Clock