Lesson Plan for the Book The Littlest Pumpkin
Teach Elementary Students How and Why People Make and Use Plans
Oct 17, 2008
The main character of The Littlest Pumpkin by R.A. Herman [Scholastic Inc., 2001] has a plan for how she wants to spend Halloween: she wants to be a jack-o'-lantern at a children's Halloween party. The children buying pumpkins at Bartlett's Farm Stand also have plans, or ideas for how they want their finished jack-o'-lanterns to look, and they pick their pumpkins accordingly, leaving the Littlest Pumpkin all alone at the end of the night. When the Littlest Pumpkin is used by mice as the jack-o'-lantern at their party, she realizes that there can be more than one way for a dream to come true.
Use this book for a primary lesson about plans: what some different kinds of plans are, why people make them, how people use them, and how plans sometimes must change.
Objectives
- Students will identify kinds of plans, reasons why people make plans, how people use plans, and how plans might change.
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of how to make a plan by drawing a sketch of a design for a decorated pumpkin.
Introduce and Share the Book
Display the book's cover and discuss the title and picture. Flip through the book and have students predict what it will be about. Read the book aloud and check predictions.
What Is a Plan?
- Explain to students that when someone makes a plan, they think ahead of time about what they would like to do or how they would like to make something.
- Have students brainstorm a list of kinds of plans, such as plans to meet with a friend or plans for how to build a house.
- Link to the book: Have students identify examples of plans, for example, the Littlest Pumpkin's plan to be a Halloween party jack-o'-lantern, the thought bubbles showing how the children plan to carve their pumpkins, and Kate's drawing.
Why Do People Make Plans?
- Discuss with students what might happen if people never made plans before acting.
- Help students think up a series of positive scenarios where people make plans and things turn out well and a series of negative scenarios where people do not make plans and things turn out poorly.
- Link to the book: Discuss what might happen if the children did not plan ahead of time how they wanted to decorate or carve their pumpkins.
How Do People Follow Plans?
- Note that sometimes a plan is something written down or drawn on paper, while other times a plan is something we just picture in our minds.
- Discuss times when students created written or drawn plans. Then discuss plans students might have in mind now, such as what they will eat for a snack later or what they would like to be when they grow up.
- Link to the book: Discuss how the children's plans match the pumpkins they pick.
When and in What Ways Do Plans Change?
- Discuss whether plans can change and, if so, if this is a good or a bad thing. Note that sometimes circumstances in life change and people realize that their initial plans weren't as good as they thought they were.
- Link to the book: Discuss how the Littlest Pumpkin's plan for Halloween changes and how she feels about this change in the end.
Assessment
- Provide children with sheets of paper and drawing tools have them sketch a plan for how they would like to decorate or carve a pumpkin for Halloween. Then have them write a description of the perfect pumpkin for their plan.
Math Enrichment Activity
- Use manipulatives or a series of word problems to help students follow the subtraction processes by which the original number of pumpkins for sale (18) is reduced to 1. Then help students create and solve their own pumpkin subtraction problems.
Reading how fictional characters create, follow, and adapt plans can help students develop their own plan-making abilities. Try another pumpkin reading lesson on following steps to design, plan, and build an invention.
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