Pumpkin Town activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Pumpkin Town Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Katie McKy's book. Read aloud the autumn 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 predictions

☐ summarize / retell

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ sequencing

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ taking ownership

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ nouns

☐ pronouns

☐ helping verbs

☐ antonyms

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

One fall day, Jose and his brothers picked out the best pumpkin seeds, and threw the smaller ones into the field at the edge of their farm. A gust of wind blew the seeds off the hill, and onto the town below. When spring came, vines started growing all around the town and soon enough pumpkins started growing everywhere around the town, even on rooftops. It was becoming difficult to move about the town.

Jose and his brothers saw that the town looked different and went down to investigate. When they saw all the pumpkins, they realized what had happened and they returned to the town at night and removed all of the pumpkins and vines. When the townspeople found the tired brothers, they sent them home with 5 watermelons as a reward for their hard work. The townspeople were able to sell all of the pumpkins and build a statue to remember the 5 boys. Jose and his family enjoyed the watermelon and collected the seeds. Worried that the seeds would land in his fields, Jose threw the watermelon seeds over the hill and they settled all over the town.

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