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The Ugly Pumpkin Activities and Lesson Plans for 2024

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Ugly 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 bullying and acceptance, this The Ugly Pumpkin picture book by Dave Horowitz 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 Ugly Pumpkin Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:

  1. Read a summary of The Ugly Pumpkin. You can find it in the section below.
  2. 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.
  3. Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with The Ugly Pumpkin reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.

THE UGLY PUMPKIN SUMMARY

The Ugly Pumpkin is a heartwarming story about a squash that thinks he is a pumpkin. He looks different than all the other pumpkins and is teased for the way he looks. No one will pick him up from the patch, he is kicked, and trees throw apples at him. As a result, he considers himself to be the ugly pumpkin and feels very lonely.

One day, the ugly pumpkin found his way into a garden and realized he was a squash! He found a group that looked just like him and he fit right in! In this happy ending, the ugly pumpkin, now a squash, enjoys a feast with his new family.

Students will love this rhyming story about a pumpkin that doesn’t know he is actually a squash.

THE UGLY 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 Ugly 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 Ugly Pumpkin reading comprehension questions focus on:

  • synthesizing
  • analyzing character
  • analyzing setting
  • plot | problem-solution
  • rhyme/rhythm/repetition

LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS

We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:

  • bullying
  • acceptance

GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY

  • nouns
  • punctuation
  • quotation marks
  • antonyms

THE UGLY 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
The Ugly Pumpkin book companion
elementary teacher reading aloud a picture book to her students

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The Ugly Pumpkin activity

BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

What are the reading levels for The Ugly Pumpkin?

  • Lexile® Measure: AD450L
  • Guided Reading Level: K
  • DRA Level: 18
  • Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.3

Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?

The book was written by Dave Horowitz. It was illustrated by Dave Horowitz.

What genre is The Ugly 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 40 pages long.

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