Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Runaway 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 problem solving, this The Runaway Pumpkin picture book by Kevin Lewis 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 The Runaway Pumpkin Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Runaway 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 The Runaway Pumpkin reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE RUNAWAY PUMPKIN SUMMARY
The Baxter boys find a huge pumpkin that they decide they need to have. However, once they cut the stem the pumpkin starts to roll down the hillside almost into the Baxter farm! It crashes through the pig sty, knocks Grandpa Baxter for a loop and finally ends up resting in the bed that Poppa Baxter plows for it.
Once the pumpkin comes to a stop, the Baxter’s get excited about all the food that Granny can make from such a huge pumpkin. Come dinner time, she places all sorts of food on the table and sets up the giant jack-o-lantern she has made.
THE RUNAWAY 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 The Runaway 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 The Runaway Pumpkin reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- summarize / retell
- plot | problem-solution
- cause and effect
- rhyme | rhythm | repetition
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- problem solving
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- nouns
- adjectives
- articles
THE RUNAWAY 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 The Runaway Pumpkin?
- Lexile® Measure: 400
- Guided Reading Level: K
- DRA Level: 18
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 4.2
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Kevin Lewis. It was illustrated by S.D. Schindler.
What genre is The Runaway 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 38 pages long.
