Big Pumpkin activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Big Pumpkin Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Erica Silverman’s book. Read aloud the October picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making inferences

☐ analyzing setting

☐ plot | problem and solution

☐ sequencing

☐ cause and effect

☐ rhyme, rhythm and repetition

☐ identifying theme, message or moral

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ teamwork

☐ sharing or taking turns

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ action verbs

☐ verb tense

☐ suffixes

☐ interjections

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The book Big Pumpkin tells the story of a witch who was growing a pumpkin. She wanted to use the pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie for Halloween. However, when she tries to get the pumpkin off the vine, she finds out it is stuck!

Several characters, the mummy, ghost and vampire all try to help pull it off. Each one is bigger and stronger than the character before, but no one can get the pumpkin out. When a bat comes along, she suggests that they all work together to pull the pumpkin off the vine.

Once everyone pulls the pumpkin together, they are able to free the pumpkin. The witch races home to make her pumpkin pie and shares it with everyone who helped.

Students will enjoy listening to this rhyming book with repeated phrases.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables