# Animal Pumpkins: Tiger, Giraffe and Zebra
> Paint mini pumpkins with acrylics to turn them into a tiger, a giraffe and a zebra, then look at them up close with a magnifying glass. A Halloween and animal mash-up made for World Animal Day, with an optional taped rainbow pumpkin.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/halloween-animal-activity-for-world-animal-day/
- Ages: 2–6 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: high
- Time: prep 10 min, activity 30 min
- Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class
- Skills: fine-motor, patterns, animals, colors, observation
- Cautions: ingestion-risk

## Materials (one batch)
- 1 piece Mini pumpkins (white and small orange)
- Acrylic paint (orange, black, white, yellow, brown)
- Paintbrushes, including a fine brush for stripes
- 1 piece Paint tray or small plastic container for paint (household)
- Glitter (optional)
- 1 piece Magnifying glass (optional)
- Painter's tape (optional)

## Substitutions
- Instead of acrylic paint: Washable kids' paint (any water-based paint) (It flakes off the pumpkin once dried. Our kids still had fun peeling it off.)

## Safety
- Acrylic paint and glitter are not for mouths. Supervise toddlers closely and keep glitter away from eyes and mouths.
- Acrylic paint can stain clothes and skin once dry. Use old clothes or smocks and wash hands and faces soon after painting.
- Painting outdoors in hot sun? Give kids shade and water breaks.

## Before you start
- For the rainbow pumpkin, tape stripes of painter's tape on a white pumpkin.

## Steps
1. Set out the mini pumpkins, acrylic paints and brushes on a covered table or outside on the patio.
2. Paint a pumpkin all over orange to make the tiger's base.
3. Sprinkle glitter on top while the paint is wet, then let it dry.
4. Paint fine black lines on the orange pumpkin for tiger stripes.
5. Look at your tiger pumpkin up close with a magnifying glass.
6. Make a giraffe pumpkin by painting yellow and brown patterns.
7. Make a zebra pumpkin by painting black and white sections.
8. Line up your animal pumpkins and show them off.

## Tips
- Use acrylics. Kids' paint (any water-based paint) will flake off the pumpkin once dried.
- If your little one insists on kids' paint anyway, let them SEE how it flakes off. Ours had fun peeling off the paint while learning a valuable lesson: 'Mommy knows best'!
- Let the kids pick the colors. A white pumpkin painted orange was what my toddler wanted, and it became our tiger.
- The giraffe pumpkin is a nice way to talk about patterns.
- Glue on some googly eyes to finish the animals. (from readers)

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

Leave it our household to turn everything into an animal related activity. On account of World Animal Day, we did a Halloween+animal combination activity today. It’s Halloween season and on cue we are painting pumpkins after school in our patio. It is weird to be painting pumpkins in the hot sun here in L.A. It is too hot to go to the park and the sun is out all.the.time. Now that I got that out of the way, here is how we made some pretty cool animal pumpkins. We got some white and baby orange pumpkins and sat to paint with acrylics. Baby A and I started painting the white pump kin orange – I know. Well, that’s the color she wanted. With orange paint on her face, she was a girl on a mission with orange paint.  Big A kept giggling calling her “You are a cheetah with orange tear marks” That’s my animal trivia loving pre schooler. Once the obligatory glitter was dumped on the orange guy’s head we set it dry. Next step is to turn into a tiger. Big A took a stab at painting fine black lines for stripes. Tada! Tiger Pumpkin  We had to observe up close with a magnifying glass  Big A learned some patterns while making giraffe pumpkins with yellow-brown patterns.

 Mommy was forcefully given a turn with a zebra pumpkin.   Next day, for our rainbow pumpkin I had prepped my white pumpkin with painters tape. Unfortunately Big A’s listening skills took a nose dive while she insisted that she want to use kids paint to paint on them. She went on to say that she needed to SEE how the paint will flake off.  We did that and here is the result just after the painting session.  I do want to say that kids paint (any water based paint)will flake off the pumpkin once dried. For what’s worth, both of them had fun peeling of the paint while learning a valuable lesson “Mommy knows best”! That’s our Halloween based animal activity and with this we wrap up our World Animal Day series. I know that I only did one animal post every three days. Note to self : Please take, sick kids, sick mom, and unexpected visitors into account before committing. For World Animal Day 2012 to show our support and love for animals we adopted an animal – a sea-horse. Every time we visit an aquarium I think of adopting an animal but it doesn’t happen. Today is the perfect day to it. The adoption is pretty much a donation which goes towards conservancy programs , animal rehabilitation programs, animal habitat programs. Since Big A has natural affinity towards anything wildlife, I really did not have to teach or show her that she needs to respect and love them. However, the only simple thing we are working on is “destroying spider webs”. It may be a very simple act, but teaching the kids not to destroy a spider’s web or crush a snail’s shell is the first step to teach them respect .

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