Integrated Lesson Plans for Too Many Pumpkins
Reading, Life Science, and Physical Science Pumpkin Unit Activities
Oct 18, 2008
Share the trade book Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White [Holiday House, 1996] with children and analyze the main character, Rebecca Estelle, and her actions. Then identify stages in the life cycle of a pumpkin and perform a science experiment observing properties of light.
Objectives
- Students will analyze a character by describing her personality and evaluating her development over the course of a story.
- Students will chart the life cycle of a pumpkin from seed to plant.
- Students will use the science process skills of observation and communication in a physical science experiment using light.
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of one property of light.
Introduce and Share the Book
Display the book's cover and discuss the title and picture. Ask students to use picture cues and the title to infer how the characters on the cover feel about the pumpkins. Flip through the book and have students predict what it will be about. Read the book aloud, pausing at certain points to have students predict what might happen next. Check overall predictions at the end.
Reading Lesson: Analyze Character
- Ask students to identify the main character in this book and describe what Rebecca Estelle is like at the beginning of the story.
- Then have students describe how she acts in the middle of the story. Note that she feels she should make something out of the pumpkins to get rid of them instead of wasting them by just throwing them away, and that she decides to share all the treats she makes with other people.
- Point out how she is smiling and winking at the end of the story, and how she saves a handful of seeds. Ask students to describe her character now.
- For assessment, have students identify any ways Rebecca has changed over the course of the story (such as not hating pumpkins any more) and explain what makes them they think she has changed in this way (sharing the treats with others seems to make her happy, she saves a handful of pumpkin seeds).
Life Science Lesson: Life Cycle of a Pumpkin
Work with students to use information from the book to put together an illustrated sequence of events chart that shows how pumpkins grow over the course of a year. For example:
- In fall, Rebecca shovels dirt on top of pumpkin seeds.
- In spring, Rebecca sees pumpkin vines growing (even after she pulls them out once).
- All summer the vines grow.
- In fall, Rebecca finds full-grown pumpkins in her yard.
You can use this activity as the focus for a more detailed lesson on how pumpkins grow.
Physical Science Lesson: Relationship Between Distance and the Brightness of Light
- Reread the page where Rebecca "finally saw a light, faint at first, then brighter, and then more lights bobbing through the night."
- Discuss how Rebecca lit jack-o'-lanterns as a signal for people far away in town to see, and have students identify what the lights are that Rebecca sees.
- Darken a long hallway. Provide three students with safe light sources, such as Mini Maglites with the reflector parts removed. Have these students stand at one end of the hallway while the rest of the class stands at the other end.
- Have the class observe how bright the lights look at this distance and then at two closer distances.
- Students should find that the lights appear brighter the closer the sources come, just as in the book.
- For assessment, help students write a sentence or two describing their findings.
Enrichment Activities
- For a social studies activity about using a natural resource, display the spread that shows all the pumpkin dishes Rebecca made, have students identify the dishes, and make a class list of the many ways a pumpkin can be used.
- For an integrated language arts and art activity to teach prepositions, help students identify prepositional phrases in the book that describe where pumpkin vines grew ("under the bushes, over the birdbath..."), and have them draw pictures showing pumpkin vines doing all these things and label the illustrated prepositional phrases in their drawings (and label any others they can think of).
- For an integrated fine motor skills, math, and baking activity, have students select one of the pumpkin treats Rebecca makes and work together to bake this treat. For example, you could try a pumpkin pie math and science lesson.
Mastering the reading comprehension skill of analyzing character and understanding why characters in a story act the way they do will help elementary students understand the meaning of the stories they read much better.
 |
 |
