Describe a pumpkin patch in the rain, when the mud wants your boots.Angle: the sound of the field, the shine on the pumpkins, and who refuses to go home.
Write what a pumpkin knows about its own insides, which it has never seen.Fact: a pumpkin's thick shell holds its seeds and its pulp.
Someone takes home the pumpkin nobody else wanted, on purpose. Write their reason.First line: I wanted the one that looked as if it had a story.
A very small child picks a very small pumpkin and will not be talked out of it. Write the scene.First line: That one, she said, and pointed at the smallest pumpkin in the field.
Describe a pumpkin patch in the first minute after you step out of the car.Angle: what you see first, what you smell, and which way everyone runs.
Describe a pumpkin patch in the rain, when the mud wants your boots.Angle: the sound of the field, the shine on the pumpkins, and who refuses to go home.
Describe one pumpkin in a patch so exactly that a friend could find it among a hundred.Angle: its lean, its stem, the flat side it grew on, one scar. Leave orange out.
It is closing time at the pumpkin patch. Write the last family through the gate and what they carry.Angle: the light is going, the best ones are gone, and they are happy anyway. Why?
The pumpkin you want from the patch is too big to carry. Write how it gets to the car.Angle: a wagon, two cousins, a slope, and a plan that changes halfway.
Two friends put a hand on the same pumpkin at the same moment. Write how it is settled.First line: We both had a hand on it, and neither of us was letting go.
Write a day at the pumpkin patch as told by the wagon that has hauled pumpkins all month.First line: Forty pumpkins before lunch, and every child wanted to ride on top of them.
Write about choosing one pumpkin out of a whole patch, and the three you nearly took.Angle: give each of the three one fault, and the winner one fault you forgave.
Write about the farmer who grew the pumpkins, watching strangers walk away with a summer's work.Angle: what does the farmer notice about who picks which pumpkin?
Write about the ride home from the pumpkin patch with a pumpkin on your lap.Angle: its weight, the dirt on your knees, and what you have already decided to do with it.
Write the sign at the gate of a pumpkin patch, then the one rule a visitor would add.First line: Welcome. Lift with two hands. Carry by the bottom, never by the stem.
Life of a pumpkin 12
A bee visits a pumpkin flower. Write the visit twice: once as the bee, once as the flower.Fact: a pumpkin vine has male and female flowers, and bees carry the pollen from one to the other.
A pumpkin introduces itself to the other vegetables at a harvest fair. Write its speech.Fact: a pumpkin is a kind of winter squash.
A pumpkin seedling has just come up. Write its first week above the ground.Fact: frost injures pumpkin seedlings, so growers wait until the danger of frost has passed.
A white pumpkin grows up in a row of orange ones. Write the summer it notices.Fact: pumpkins are orange in most varieties, but white, green and other colors exist.
Harvest day: write the moment a pumpkin is cut from its vine, from the pumpkin's side.Fact: a few inches of stem are left on, because a pumpkin without its stem usually does not keep well.
One pumpkin is still green while the others around it have turned. Write its thoughts.Fact: a pumpkin is ready to pick when it is a deep, solid color and its rind is hard.
Write a pumpkin vine's diary for the week it loses a branch and grows another.Fact: a pumpkin plant that loses leaves or part of its vine can quickly grow new vines in their place.
Write a pumpkin's life story in the pumpkin's own words, beginning as one seed in the ground.Fact: pumpkin seeds do not sprout in cold soil, so the seed's story starts once the ground has warmed.
Write about a pumpkin when it is still a tiny green ball at the base of a flower.Fact: a female pumpkin flower has a small fruit at its base, and a male flower has none.
Write the last mild night in the field, as a ripe pumpkin that is still on the vine.Fact: pumpkins are picked before heavy frosts, because one that has been through heavy frost does not keep.
Write the morning the first flowers open on a pumpkin vine, as the vine tells it.Fact: the first flowers on a pumpkin vine are almost always male, and each blooms for one day.
Write what a pumpkin knows about its own insides, which it has never seen.Fact: a pumpkin's thick shell holds its seeds and its pulp.
The one nobody picked 12
A pumpkin is lifted, carried halfway to the car and put back. Write what the pumpkin makes of that.First line: For eleven steps I belonged to somebody.
A pumpkin that never turned orange is the only one left on the stand. Write who takes it home.Angle: a person who is late, a person who is different, or a person who likes green.
A pumpkin with a flat side, a pumpkin with a scar, a pumpkin with no stem: choose one and write the day it is chosen.Angle: who picks it, and what do they see that the others missed?
It is the last evening of October and one pumpkin is still in the field. Write why nobody picked it.Angle: give three reasons the pumpkin has heard, and the one it believes.
The smallest pumpkin in the bin watches the big ones leave one by one. Write its week.Angle: by Friday it has the whole bin to itself. Is that better or worse?
Someone takes home the pumpkin nobody else wanted, on purpose. Write their reason.First line: I wanted the one that looked as if it had a story.
Tell the story of the pumpkin nobody picked as a crow on the fence would tell it.Angle: the crow has watched all month and has opinions about people and their choices.
Write a for-sale sign for the pumpkin nobody picked, as honest as it is hopeful.First line: One pumpkin. Slightly leaning. Excellent listener.
Write a letter from the pumpkin nobody picked to the pumpkins of next year.First line: Do not worry about your shape. Worry about where the wagon stops.
Write six lines of poetry for the pumpkin left in the field, and do not make them sad.Angle: what does it get to see that the others never will? Frost, stars, a fox going by.
Write the conversation between the last two pumpkins on a farm stand at the end of the day.Angle: one is sure they will be picked tomorrow. The other has stopped counting.
Write the thoughts of a lopsided pumpkin as family after family walks past it.First line: They always stop. They always tilt their heads. They always move on.
Painting a pumpkin 12
A class paints pumpkins, and yours does not turn out as planned. Write what it turned into.Angle: the drip, the smudge, the moment you decided it was meant to be that way.
A painted pumpkin is rained on overnight. Write what its face looks like in the morning.First line: The smile had slid a little to the left, and I liked it better.
Describe a painted pumpkin on a porch as it looks to someone walking past at dusk.Angle: what shows from the sidewalk, and what you only see from the top step.
Is it better to paint a pumpkin or to carve one? Write your opinion with three reasons.Angle: think about mess, about who can join in, and about what happens to the pumpkin after.
Tell a pumpkin's side of being painted: the cold brush, the tickle, the wait while it dries.First line: Nobody asked me, but I would have chosen blue.
Two friends paint one pumpkin together, one side each. Write what happens where the sides meet.Angle: stripes on the left, stars on the right, and an argument about the stem.
Write about an afternoon of painting pumpkins as the brush that had to do the eyes.First line: The big brush got the easy part. I got the eyes, and no second chances.
Write about choosing colors to paint a pumpkin when orange is not allowed.Angle: name the three you pick, where each goes, and what the pumpkin becomes.
Write the label that would hang beside your painted pumpkin if it were in an art show.Angle: a title, what it is made with, and two sentences on what the artist meant.
Write the steps for painting a pumpkin for someone who has never done it, in the order your hands would go.First line: Before the paint comes out, turn the pumpkin until you find its front.
You are the judge of a pumpkin painting contest with three very different entries. Write your decision.Angle: one is neat, one is funny, one is strange. Say what you looked for and who won.
You may paint one face on a pumpkin. Describe the face and say why you chose it.Angle: the eyebrows decide everything. Start there.
After October 12
A family saves seeds from its best pumpkin every year. Write about the envelope they are kept in.Angle: what is written on it, in whose handwriting, and how far back the dates go.
A pumpkin is put on the compost heap after October. Write what it has turned into by spring.Angle: tell it month by month. What moves in, and what grows on top?
A pumpkin is still on the porch when the first snow falls. Write the morning.First line: It wore the snow like a hat it had not asked for.
A squirrel finds the porch pumpkin in November. Write the feast.First line: It had been sitting there for weeks, and nobody had told me it was food.
If a pumpkin could choose what to become after October, what would it pick? Write its reasons.Angle: a pie, a meal for the birds, seeds for next year, or part of the garden soil.
It is the first of November. Write what a porch pumpkin sees now that the costumes are gone.Angle: the quiet street, a wrapper in the hedge, and nobody stopping to look at it.
One seed from last year's pumpkin comes up by the back step, where nobody planted it. Write its summer.Angle: who notices it first, and who decides to let it stay?
The seeds are scooped out of a pumpkin and set aside. Write where three of them end up.Fact: pumpkin seeds can be eaten, and roasted ones are a common snack.
Write a goodbye to a porch pumpkin on the day it has to go.Angle: thank it for three things it did while it sat there.
Write a thank-you note from a garden to the old pumpkin that was dug back into it.First line: You were a seed here once. Welcome back.
Write about a pumpkin that becomes a pie, from the pumpkin's side, and give it a happy ending.Fact: pumpkin pie is a traditional part of Thanksgiving meals in Canada and the United States.
Write the field in November after the pumpkins have gone, as the one vine still lying there.First line: I held up nine of them this year, and now I am holding up nothing at all.
How it works
These creative writing prompts about pumpkins hand the pumpkin the pen. It sprouts, flowers, gets picked or passed over, sits on a porch and goes back to the soil. Not one prompt is meant to scare.
Read the full guide
Creative writing prompts about a pumpkin and how it grows
The prompts on a pumpkin's life each carry a fact from the University of Illinois Extension or Wikipedia. The seeds do not sprout in cold soil. The first flowers are almost always male, and each blooms for one day. A pumpkin is ready when it is a deep, solid color and its rind is hard.
A writing prompt on painting pumpkins
Painting has a group of its own: the steps in the order your hands would go, the one face you are allowed, the label for an art show, the morning after rain. One asks whether it is better to paint a pumpkin or to carve one, with three reasons.
Give the pumpkin one thing it wants: to be picked, to stay, to turn orange. Any of them starts a story.
With a fact prompt, let the pumpkin say the fact itself, and be a little proud of it.
Questions and answers
What is a good pumpkin writing prompt for kids?
One with a job to do. Write a for-sale sign for the pumpkin nobody picked, as honest as it is hopeful. Describe one pumpkin in a patch so exactly that a friend could find it among a hundred.
Are there pumpkin story ideas here?
Yes. A lopsided pumpkin watches family after family walk past it. One seed from last year's pumpkin comes up by the back step, where nobody planted it. A pumpkin is lifted, carried halfway to the car and put back.
Which writing prompt on pumpkins fits a science lesson?
A bee visits a pumpkin flower: write the visit twice, once as the bee and once as the flower. The line under it says a pumpkin vine has male and female flowers, and bees carry the pollen from one to the other.