Pumpkin Preschool Lesson Plan for Ordinal Numbers

Preschoolers are notorious for chanting "me first" when it's time to get something or stand in a line. But what about the rest of the ordinal numbers? Would it cause less meltdowns if kids thought they were 4th in line rather than last in line? Probably not, but it's worth a shot. Here is a simple lesson Avlyn and I did the other day, taking full advantage of fall time and pumpkins.

Objective:
Teach ordinal numbers 1st through 5th using the "5 Little Pumpkins" song and a craft.

Materials:
*Long piece of brown paper - an flattened wrapping paper tube works best, but you can staple a few pieces of construction paper together.
*Orange and green construction paper
*Crayons
*Glue

Begin by drawing a fence along the bottom of the brown paper. Let your child color the fence. Avlyn added some spiders to her fence. While your child colors the fence, cut out five orange circles that will fit comfortably on the top of the fence. Also cut out five green squares for stems. On the bottom of the pumpkins write 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Leave enough room for your child to draw faces.



After the fence is colored, review the ordinal numbers written on the pumpkins. Show your child how each pumpkin has a place based on their ordinal number. Then, have them glue the stems on the pumpkin based on their number. For example, you will say "glue the stem on the 3rd pumpkin" and so forth.

Let your child draw fun faces on each pumpkin, but instruct them not to cover up the number. Once the faces are drawn, ask your child to put the pumpkins in order based on their ordinal numbers. Review ordinals and give any help needed. Next, sing the
5 Little Pumpkins song, holding up the corresponding pumpkin.

Tape the fence to a wall and have your child attach the pumpkins on the fence in ordinal number order.
I mixed up the pumpkins and then had her pick which was 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so forth. Then we sang the song again and she pointed to each pumpkin. I also gave her a speed quiz where I quickly told her to point to the 1st pumpkin, 4th pumpkin, 3rd pumpkin and so forth. And that was our lesson plan for working with ordinal numbers up to 5. Happy homeschooling!