Too Many Pumpkins activities and lesson plan ideas

 Our Too Many Pumpkins Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Linda White's book. Read aloud the Halloween 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

☐ visualizing

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing setting

☐ point of view

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ sequencing

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ problem-solving

☐ empathy

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ plural nouns

☐ action verbs

☐ suffixes

☐ punctuation

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

The story of Too Many Pumpkins is about a woman named Rebecca Estelle.

As a child, Rebecca’s family did not have a lot of money and they had to eat pumpkin all the time. As a result, Rebecca grew to hate pumpkins and never wanted to eat them again.

On her farm, Rebecca grew many different vegetables, but no pumpkins. One day, a truck drove by and a giant pumpkin fell into Rebecca’s yard. First, she tried to bury it, but come spring it started to grow vines. She tried to ignore the growing vines until she discovered that many pumpkins had grown in her yard. She decided to share the pumpkins with those that might be struggling. Eventually, Rebecca carved some of the pumpkins to attract her community and was able to share all the pumpkin treats she had made.

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