Pumpkin Carving With Kids: Our Favorite Fall Activity With Friends
There are some kids' activities that sound fun in theory but, once you actually do them, somehow turn into a whole lot of work for the parents.
Pumpkin carving definitely has the potential to be one of those. 😂
Sharp tools. Giant pumpkins. Pumpkin guts everywhere. Kids who have very ambitious design ideas but hands that aren't quite ready to execute them.
And yet, the afternoon we spent carving pumpkins with a couple of families in our neighborhood turned out to be one of my favorite fall activities we've done with the kids.
It wasn't fancy. There was no elaborate Halloween party setup, no coordinated decorations, and definitely no Pinterest-worthy craft table. We basically brought 5 kids, several giant pumpkins and a $15 pumpkin carving kit outside and hoped for the best.
And somehow, it was perfect.
It Started at Our Favorite Pumpkin Patch
A few days before our pumpkin-carving afternoon, all three families went together to Deluca Farm, our favorite pumpkin patch around Los Angeles.
We'd been to Deluca several times over the years, and it's still the pumpkin patch we keep going back to. There are plenty of activities for the kids, but what I really love is that it still feels like an actual pumpkin patch rather than a temporary carnival that happens to have pumpkins sitting around.
The kids ran around, played, and eventually everyone picked out a pumpkin to bring home.
And instead of letting those pumpkins sit untouched on our porches until Halloween -- which, honestly, could very easily have happened -- we actually made plans to carve them together a few days later.
I wrote about this place a lot more in detail and a few other pumpkin patches around LA in another post, if you're looking for a pumpkin patch to take your kids. See 5 Pumpkin Patches Around Los Angeles We've Actually Tried With Kids.
Five Kids, Ages 3 to 7, and a Table Full of Pumpkins
At the time, our younger son was 3 and our older son had just turned 6. He's an October baby, so fall activities always seem to land right around his birthday.
Between the 3 families, we had 5 kids altogether, ranging from age 3 to 7.
We decided to meet at the outdoor kitchen area in one of our friends' apartment communities, which turned out to be one of our better decisions.
Because pumpkin carving is MESSY.
Very messy.
We covered the outdoor table with paper towels, put the pumpkins down and basically accepted that pumpkin seeds and orange goo were about to end up everywhere.
Being outside meant nobody had to hover over the kids saying, Don't get that on the floor! Don't touch that couch! Where did that pumpkin seed go?!
Highly recommend. 😂
The $15 Pumpkin Carving Kit That Made It Kid-Friendly
Before we got together, I bought a pumpkin carving kit from Target for about $15.
Instead of relying entirely on little carving knives, the kit came with a mallet and 16 metal cutters in different shapes.
That ended up being perfect for the kids' ages.
We started by having the adults cut open the tops of the pumpkins. Then came the part the kids were MUCH more interested in:
Getting everything out.
If you've ever handed a 3-year-old a pumpkin filled with cold, slimy, stringy goo, you probably already know what happened next.
Hands went in.
Spoons went in.
Seeds? Went everywhere.
And suddenly cleaning out the pumpkins was apparently the greatest activity we'd ever planned.
There was something very satisfying about watching 5 kids happily scoop out pumpkin guts while the adults stood around helping. It's messy enough to feel exciting to them but harmless enough that you can just let them go for it.
Designing Our Jack-o'-Lanterns
Once the pumpkins were mostly empty, we started figuring out the faces.
The kids helps decide what kind of eyes and mouths they wanted, and we draw the designs directly onto the pumpkins. We were going to use cookie cutters so the drawings didn't have to be precise. We just needed roughly where things should go.
Some wanted happy faces. Some wanted scarier faces. Some designs evolved a little as we went along - which I think is part of the charm of carving pumpkins with kids.
Nobody was trying to create a professional jack-o'-lantern.
We were just trying to turn everyone's ideas into something vaguely recognizable. 😂
The cookie-cutter-style pieces from the kit made this part especially fun. We could position different shapes on the pumpkin and use the mallet to push them through.
In theory, this sounds like something the kids could do completely on their own.
In reality?
Not quite.
Pumpkins are tougher than they look, and the younger kids definitely needed adult hands to hold everything steady and help hammer the cutters through. Even the older kids needed some assistance depending on the shape.
But I actually liked that.
Instead of becoming an activity where the adults set everything up and then stood off to the side, it became something we were all doing together. Kids chose the designs and tried the tools, while parents helped with the parts that required more strength or precision.
It really was a group project.
Then the Kids Added Their Own Decorations
This was the part I hadn't planned at all.
Once the carving was mostly finished, the kids wandered over to the nearby garden and started collecting flower petals and leaves.
Soon our regular jack-o'-lanterns were getting accessories.
Flowers ended up tucked near pumpkin stems and added around the faces, and suddenly the pumpkins had a little more personality than anything that had come out of our $15 carving kit.
I loved this because it was completely their idea.
We had started with a pumpkin-carving activity, but once we gave them some freedom, they turned it into their own little art project.
And honestly, the flowers made the pumpkins pretty cute.
Of Course We Had to Take 500 Pictures
Once all the pumpkins were finished, there was only one thing left to do.
Take pictures.
Lots and lots of pictures.
Kids with pumpkins.
Kids with friends.
Individual pictures.
Sibling pictures.
Family pictures.
Pictures of the pumpkins by themselves.
Pictures of people taking pictures of other people with pumpkins.
You know. The usual. 😂
But looking back at those photos now, I'm really glad we did.
The pumpkins themselves were fun, but what I remember most about that afternoon is everyone being together. The parents were involved just as much as the kids, nobody was rushing anywhere, and the whole afternoon felt surprisingly relaxed considering there were 5 children, carving tools and piles of pumpkin guts involved.
Cleanup Was Surprisingly Easy
This is another reason I'd do this outside again.
When we were finished, we gathered up the pumpkin pieces, seeds, paper towels and tools and cleaned the table.
Done.
No pumpkin guts ground into the kitchen floor. No seeds mysteriously appearing under furniture 3 days later.
And since we were already gathered around an outdoor kitchen, we didn't end the afternoon after the pumpkins were finished.
We fired up the barbecue and stayed for dinner.
What started as a simple kids' activity basically turned into a full afternoon and evening together.
Those are usually my favorite kinds of plans anyway -- the ones where the activity gives everyone a reason to get together, but the kids playing and the adults hanging out end up being just as much a part of the day.
Would We Do It Again?
Definitely.
We actually didn't get to repeat our pumpkin-carving afternoon last year because our family was traveling for half of October, and fall somehow disappeared before we knew it.
But this year, I want to bring it back.
And I think I'd do it almost exactly the same wy.
Pick pumpkins together. Find an outdoor space. Bring a simple carving kit. Let the kids get completely gross digging out the insides. Have adults help with the actual carving. Let the kids decorate however they want.
Then eat together afterward.
Nothing complicated.
Sometimes that's enough.
An Easier Pumpkin Activity for Younger Kids
If your kids are still too little for pumpkin carving -- or you're reading all of this thinking, Absolutely not. I'm not dealing with pumpkin guts -- there's a much easier option too.
When my younger son was in TK, I did a pumpkin craft with his class using small faux pumpkins.
Instead of carving anything, the kids decorated their pumpkins with face stickers, glitter and other little craft decorations.
It obviously doesn't have the same messy sensory experience as scooping out a real pumpkin, but for younger kids it was perfect. They could do almost everything themselves, there were no carving tools involved, and every child still got to make a pumpkin that looked completely different.
So if I were choosing based on age, I'd probably say:
Preschool/early elementary with adult help: real pumpkin carving
A mixed-age group like ours: do the real pumpkins together and expect the adults to be very involved
For us, ages 3 through 7 actually worked surprisingly well because nobody expected the kids to do everything independently.
And maybe that's why I loved this afternoon so much.
It wasn't really an activity for the kids while the adults watched.
It was something we all did together.
The kids got messy. The parents did most of the muscle work. Everyone contributed something questionable to the pumpkin designs. We took way too many pictures, cleaned up, ate dinner together and went home with 5 very imperfect jack-o'-lanterns.
Pretty much exactly what a fall afternoon with kids should look like. 💕
