Fall Fun With The Biggest Pumpkin
Ever
Homeschool Life// Unit StudiesLeave a Comment
Fall is such a wonderful time of year. We get to enjoy the beautiful colored
leaves, cooler weather and fun activities like apple picking, hayrides, and corn
mazes. Not to mention the wonderful bounties of a fall harvest. It’s also a
perfect time to learn about one of autumn’s most loved crops: Pumpkins!
I am so excited to share with you one of my favorite fall books The Biggest
Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll. This enjoyable story tells the tale of two
mice who fall in love with the same pumpkin and unknowingly both decided
to nurture it. Before long, the pumpkin grows to become the biggest pumpkin
ever.
This fun fall story offers tons of great learning opportunities. While it’s not a
Halloween story I feel like I should let you know that it does make mention of
Halloween. If this makes you uncomfortable this may not be the book for you.
Science
Life cycle of a pumpkin: discover how a pumpkin changes as it grows
as you learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin.
Pumpkin parts: learn about the different parts of the pumpkin.
Pumpkin care: in the story, both mice take lots of care to nurture and
grow their pumpkin. Discuss with your child what a pumpkin needs to
grow.
Frost: both mice head to the field to cover their pumpkin before the first
frost. Learn about what frost is and talk about how it can affect crops.
Pumpkin senses: using your five senses see what you can discover
about a pumpkin. How does it feel? What does it taste like? Does it have
a smell? Can it make a sound?
Math
Pumpkin math: take the measurements of a real pumpkin. See if you
can find out how much it weighs, its circumference, and its height.
Counting: in the story, it takes 100 mice on motorcycles to pull the
giant pumpkin to town. Practice counting to 100 by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s or 10’s.
Relative size: in the story, the house mouse checks on a friend’s
pumpkin and determines that it is much smaller than his own. Discuss
with your child the ideas of smaller and larger. Try sorting different
objects in order of size or group them by large and small. We used
different sized pumpkins to do this.
Pumpkin Measurements: on pages 10 & 11 you see 5 pictures of the
pumpkin growing during its first month. Using a ruler measure each
pumpkin in cm to discover how much it has grown.
Geometric shapes: on the last page of the book you see a picture of
the jack-o’-lantern that the field mouse carved. Using black construction
paper cut out different geometric shapes. Talk about the names of each
shape and how many sides they each have. Then use your shapes to
create your own pumpkin face by gluing them to a piece of orange
construction paper.
Language Arts
Repetition: the actions and speech of the mice often mimic each other.
Talk about the idea of repetition and find examples of it within the story.
Elements of a story: discuss the elements included in a good story.
Then see if you can find the setting, rising action, problem, climax and
conclusion in The Biggest Pumpkin Ever.
Personification: teach your child that personification is when an
author gives human traits to a non-human entity. Look through the story
together and notice different human traits and characteristics that the
mice have been given.
Social Studies
Hard work: in the story, both mice had to put in a lot of effort, hard
work and time to get their pumpkin to grow. Discuss how hard work can
lead to success and share a time in your own life when you had to work
hard to accomplish something.
Problem-solving: when the mice faced the challenge of figuring out
how to transport the pumpkin to town they had to come up with a
creative solution. Can you think of another way they could have moved
the pumpkin?
Compromise: when the mice found out that they were both taking care
of the pumpkin they were able to come to an agreement on how they
both would get to use the pumpkin. Have you ever made a compromise
with someone? How can compromise help to solve problems?
Arts & Crafts
Pumpkin contrast drawing: during the story, you often see the same
actions repeated during the day and at night by the mice. Use pastels to
draw two pumpkin picture on both black a white paper.
Pumpkin apple stamping: using orange paint and an apple make
some stamped pumpkin art .
More Fun
Bake pumpkin seeds
Visit a pumpkin patch
Julie Anne is a homeschool mom of four living in the midwest. You can find
her at her site More Excellent Me where she shares ideas, resources, and lots
of printables to help you add fun and learning into all areas of family life. You
can also follow her on Pinterest and Facebook.
Tauna
I'm Tauna, owner of Proverbial Homemaker! This is me: Jesus follower, wife,
mom, [domestically challenged] homemaker, homeschooler, and writer.
Proverbial Homemaker exists to bring you encouragement and tools for the
journey. Let us pursue God's call on our lives (no matter the learning curve)
and rely on Him to equip us for the task!