‘Tis the season for pumpkins and the Flexible Foxes have been making the most of this seasonal treat by roasting pumpkin seeds! Scroll on to learn more about the process.

In the sensory table, some kids delighted in pulling all the guts and seeds out of our first classroom pumpkin! They used a colander to collect the seeds that they separated from the rest of the flesh.

On Wednesday, once the seeds had been cleaned and dried out, it was time to prepare them for roasting. First we gathered up rosemary and thyme from our roof garden. Then of course, we had to wash our herbs to make sure there weren’t any ants!

Forget an herb stripper or chopping with knives, these four year old hands are perfect for adding your fresh herbs to tasty dishes! Look at that focus and fine motor control!

We added olive oil and salt along with the herbs. Time to mix, mix, mix!

As we laid out the pumpkin seeds on the baking sheet, our little chefs carefully arranged the seeds so that they cooked evenly.

*Not pictured was the very thorough cleanup job that these four chefs did at the Brown Table. They tossed the stems and other bits of herbs we no longer needed and then worked together to spray and wipe down the table.*

The last batch of the pumpkin seeds were finished roasting by Closing Meeting, so everyone inspected the fruits of their friends’ labor. When asked to tell the class how they helped make the roasted pumpkin seeds, one child said, “We added salt and flowers” and another added “we had to mix them with our hands and I was really scared about that, but it was fun!” Another explained that “we had the thymes and the rosemaries and added the leaves to the bowl of seeds.” Ruby added that we harvested the herbs “on the roof.”

Finally, today we got to give those roasted pumpkin seeds a taste test! We knew this was an eagerly awaited event – this morning before drop-off, we could hear children announcing to everyone outside our classroom that we were going to be eating the pumpkin seeds today.

At snack time, everyone gave it a brave try – some liked them better than others. Some especially enjoyed the crispy herbs, some took the seeds apart to look inside, some asked for seconds and thirds and fourths!