Ever wonder what the gnomes do for their Thanksgiving (or late harvest) festival? Well they like to sneak out and find the last of the big orange pumpkins and drag them back to the mushroom doorway and down the steps to the grand hall and all the gnomes take pieces of it to cook. Why do they cook it? because they love pumpkin pie. So while some of the gnomes drag the pumpkin into the hall, others are out tracking down pasture cattle to milk them so they can have cream for whipping cream. (Mom do you see where this is going?)
Stories like these are easy kindergarten tales and also great filler stories during the holidays when perhaps your lessons are thin. We have been blessed with beautiful autumn weather this year and it has been the palette for some great autumn gnome stories in our home (we usually have wet heavy snow by now.) Like our giant turnip story we had this story covering many things - we of course did writing and drawing, we also painted pumpkins, made beeswax pumpkins for the nature table and will roast a pumpkin tomorrow to use for pumpkin pie, bread and cookies - unless of course I lose my nerve to break up this giant thing sitting in my living room and use the stuff from a can instead! Don't forget that you can extend this lesson for anyone working on farming - get some cream, make some of it into whipped cream for your pie and the rest into butter for your pumpkin bread!
A few recipes:
Pumpkin bread (can be halved)~
2 cups pumpkin
3 cups sucanat (or nasty old table sugar will work too!)
1 cup of water
1 cup of oil
3 eggs or egg replacer
3 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. ground cloves
Preheat oven to 350. Mix wet, combine dry. Combine the two together. Pour into loaf pans and bake 60-70 minutes. Cool 10-15 min, then remove from pans. Enjoy!
Pumpkin pie ~
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree, canned or fresh
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or spices that make up pumpkin pie spice!)
1 tsp. flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup whipping cream
2 TBL water
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 pie shell
Combine pumpkin, sugar, salt, spices and flour in a medium mixing bowl. Add eggs, mix well. Add cream, water, and vanilla, mix well. Pour into pie shell, bake at 400 for 15 min. Then reduce heat to 350 and bake about 35 min. longer or until center is set.
This story worked out great for the handwork class I teach. When using it for a painting story, layer the paper in circle yellow, then blue for the ground as it will turn to green, then circle red in a round shape to make the pumpkin, a little blue to make a green stem and voila! An easy pumpkin for young ones (grade one-2) as it teaches blending.
Our beeswax pumpkins. For more tips on beeswax, see the giant turnip story.
For writing practice, we adapted and borrowed a verse from Autumn by Wynstones Press -
"Autumn showers, autumn rain, wash the pumpkins clean again."
If you need more pumpkin action... listen to Jodie's great Pumpkin Pie song from Festivals, Family & Food.
Elleanor's lesson book.
Advent is coming... are you ready?
