Pawsitively Teaching: Pumpkins

Fall in Texas can never seem to arrive soon enough! That first real "cool" front marks the start of one of my favorite times of the year. This time of the year, pumpkin spice takes over restaurants and grocery store shelves. For even more fun.....let pumpkins take over your classroom.

Pumpkin are always such a fun addition to any lesson plan in October.

I always begin planning a unit with quality literature.

I just love the level of engagement that can come from reading a picture book aloud or the joy a book can bring to a child.

Here is a look at the books I will make available to my students as we are focusing on pumpkins. Honestly, there are so many great pumpkin books that choosing just nine to showcase was tough!

Integration is a life saver in my classroom because it is the only way I have found to expose my kids to all the topics that I need to cover.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the basal reader in my class. I want the reading we focus on during the week to be meaningful for the students and guide them to becoming thinkers as they read. During our pumpkin unit, we use a nonfiction passage to answer comprehension questions with text evidence. We also work on sequencing the pumpkin life cycle and writing questions in response to the text . The student also have a chance to document their learning in a variety of different forms.

Pumpkins are such a fun theme that I even add them into our math problem solving practice.

These task cards from Inspired Owl's Corner are my favorite addition to our word work station during Pumpkin week.

This video takes kids to the fields where Libby's grows their pumpkins and shows how pumpkins make the journey from seed to pumpkin.

This video puts the pumpkin life cycle to music. My kids love singing this song!

This graphic organizer is great for helping kids visualize the life cycle of a pumpkin. You can pick up a copy for your students to use for FREE by clicking on the image above.

After students have completed the graphic organizer, they can move easily into creating their own pumpkin mini book explaining in greater detail each stage of the pumpkin life cycle. A copy of this mini book is available for FREE by clicking on the image above.

I love this FREEBIE from Buzzing with Mrs. B. It used the book Pumpkin Jack as the mentor text for a great lesson on using transition words. Click on the image above to grab a copy for your class.

Here is another great pumpkin writing activity using The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons as the Mentor text. It is available as a FREEBIE from Literacy Garden.

I would love to hear from you.....what does pumpkin fun look like in your classroom?

Happy Fall!!!! I just love Fall.....although we have yet to experience it this year in Texas there is hope it will be coming soon!

When you think of Fall.....PUMPKINS are always one of the first things that come to mind. What could be more fun than mixing PUMPKINS and literacy?

Sequencing is one of the many skills that helps increase a student's ability to comprehend what they are reading. Sequencing is the ability to identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story, and also the ability to retell the events of the text in the order in which they occurred. As students develop their ability to understand and place the details of a text in the correct order, they need to master the use of transition words.

Little Boo is the perfect book for October. It tells the story of a pumpkin seed that just can't wait to grow up and become scary. It is a great fictional text that describes the life cycle of a pumpkin. The illustrations in the book are wonderfully done.

After reading the book, the kids work on completing this graphic organizer showing the steps in the life cycle of the pumpkin. You can grab a copy of this graphic organizer by clicking HERE or on the image above.

Once the students have their graphic organizer completed, they use it to assist them with their writing. This is a fun way to work on using transition words to show correct sequence in their writing. The pumpkin mini-book includes a list of transition words that the kids can use as a reference. Since it is still early in the year, I like to have my students highlight the transition words they use to illustrate how transitional words improve the overall flow of the writing.

You can grab a copy of this mini-book for FREE to use in your classroom by clicking on the image above or HERE.

My literacy block is based around a theme each week. Little Boo fits in nicely during my pumpkin week.

In addition to working perfectly for sequencing and as a supplement to any unit on pumpkins, this book also conveys the importance of patience. Through this book, children see that sometimes it is necessary to wait a bit for what they want or for a dream to come true.

Did you catch my mystery word? If not, it is PUMPKINS. Now it's time to hop to the next stop. Thanks for visiting my blog today and I would love for you to stop back by sometime!