Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Pumpkin Soup 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 friendship, sharing and taking turns, this Pumpkin Soup picture book by Helen Cooper 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 Pumpkin Soup Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Pumpkin Soup. 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 Pumpkin Soup reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
PUMPKIN SOUP SUMMARY
The story, Pumpkin Soup is about three friends; Cat, Squirrel, and Duck. They live together in an old, white cabin, and always make pumpkin soup. Each character has a specific role in creating the soup. The Cat slices the pumpkin, Squirrel stirs in the water, and Duck adds the salt. One day, Duck decides that he would like a turn at stirring. This causes a huge fight between the three friends, and Duck leaves the cabin.
At first, Squirrel and Cat are angry at the Duck. Eventually, they grow sad and miss their friend, and go out to look for him. As they look for him, they reflect on what kind of friends they were to him. They even worry that he found better friends that would let him help and have a turn. When they return to the cabin, they see that Duck is there! They let him have a turn at stirring and have delicious pumpkin soup.
PUMPKIN SOUP 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 Pumpkin Soup, 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 Pumpkin Soup reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- analyzing character
- analyzing illustrations
- plot (problem-solution)
- rhyme | rhythm | repetition
- identifying theme (message | moral)
- cause and effect
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- friendship
- sharing
- taking turns
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- adjectives
- contractions
- synonyms
PUMPKIN SOUP 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 Pumpkin Soup?
- Lexile® Measure: AD310L
- Guided Reading Level: L
- DRA Level: 20
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.1
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Helen Cooper. It was illustrated by Helen Cooper.
What genre is Pumpkin Soup ?
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.
