Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Big Pumpkin will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With themes of teamwork and taking turns, this Big Pumpkin picture book by Erica Silverman is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with Big Pumpkin Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Big Pumpkin. You can find it in the section below.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Big Pumpkin reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
BIG PUMPKIN SUMMARY
The book Big Pumpkin tells the story of a witch who was growing a pumpkin. She wanted to use the pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie for Halloween. However, when she tries to get the pumpkin off the vine, she finds out it is stuck!
Several characters, the mummy, ghost and vampire all try to help pull it off. Each one is bigger and stronger than the character before, but no one can get the pumpkin out.
When a bat comes along, she suggests that they all work together to pull the pumpkin off the vine. Once everyone pulls the pumpkin together, they are able to free the pumpkin.
The witch races home to make her pumpkin pie and shares it with everyone who helped. Students will enjoy listening to this rhyming book with repeated phrases.
BIG PUMPKIN LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for Big Pumpkin, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based Big Pumpkin reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- analyzing setting
- plot (problem and solution)
- sequencing
- cause and effect
- rhyme, rhythm and repetition
- identifying theme, message or moral”
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- teamwork
- sharing or taking turns
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- verb tense
- suffixes
- interjections
BIG PUMPKIN ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for Big Pumpkin?
- Lexile® Measure: AD350L
- Guided Reading Level: J
- DRA Level: 16
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.8
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Erica Silverman. It was illustrated by S.D. Schindler.
What genre is Big Pumpkin?
It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 32 pages long.
