10/07/2026
🎃✨ Following their curiosity in Toddler 1! ✨🎃
A message from our educator Brandi about this incredible learning opportunity.
✨Our pumpkin exploration began with interest in some pumpkin decor that was brought in to the toddler one program. We brought a small pumpkin after seeing this interest to begin to takeoff. This evolved into an interest in observing and touching the outside of a pumpkin. As the children became more curious, we introduced new language such as orange, smooth, rough, hard, and soft while encouraging them to describe what they noticed. This interest naturally progressed to exploring the inside of the pumpkin, where the children encountered new textures and vocabulary including slimy, wet, squishy, sticky, and seeds. Some children embraced the messy sensory experience, while others communicated their preferences by saying “eww,” demonstrating that children were able to make individual choices and express their responses to the experience.
As their interest continued, we incorporated spoons, magnifying glasses, pots, and pans to encourage further investigation and experimentation. The children explored scooping, transferring, examining, and mixing the pumpkin materials before extending the experience into a simple science experiment using baking soda and vinegar to observe the bubbling reaction. We then introduced a larger pumpkin, inviting the children to compare the two pumpkins and consider “How are they the same?” and “How are they different?” Through this progression, the children’s initial interest in a pumpkin developed into an extended investigation supporting sensory exploration, language development, scientific thinking, comparison, problem-solving, fine motor skills, and curiosity.
This experience demonstrates how following the children’s interests can create meaningful opportunities for learning that evolve naturally through their questions, observations, and hands-on discoveries. ✨
