Who Has The Pumpkin Halloween Game

Submitted by Joni Kotche, Bloomingdale, Illinois

Idea posted December 5, 2001

This is how I play the game (others may do it differently). I have a squishy pumpkin (one of my 5ths asked if it was a stress release pumpkin... I told him I would see after his class left... LOL). I have everyone sit in a circle on the floor (I've just begun doing this with 1st graders... they love it!).

I teach them the singing pattern "Who Has The pumpkin?" (SMLSM). We pass the pumpkin around the circle singing this pattern until the pumpkin ends up in my hands again.

Then, I tell them how the game is played. We pass the pumpkin around the circle singing, "Who has the Pumpkin?" The person with the pumpkin sings, "I have the pumpkin." They begin the passing of the pumpkin again while everyone sings, "XXXXX has the pumpkin," all using the SMLSM pattern. We continue this until everyone has had the pumpkin.

If a child gets the pumpkin twice, they continue to pass until someone who has NOT had the pumpkin ends up with it. We keep singing until someone sings, "I have the pumpkin." Make sense?

Once they have done this activity, I change how we play. Depending on the grade level, I either toss or roll the pumpkin to one specific person. Same singing of "Who," "I," "XXXXX" has the pumpkin.

I sure hope this makes sense. It is so much easier to show or tell verbally than write this out... LOL. The really good thing about this game is they don't even realize that I can evaluate their pitch matching and ability to sing alone while we are playing. I always have a couple that are shy about singing the first time, but when I do the tossing or rolling, they sing with gusto.