1-2-3 Come Do Some Pumpkin Life Cycle Activities With Me

Since the Life Cycle of an Apple packet, was so popular, I decided to make a matching one featuring a pumpkin's life cycle.

You’ll love the versatility, as it’s appropriate for a variety of ages and levels, with lots of options.

The Life Cycle of a Pumpkin emergent reader, is great non-fiction practice that reinforces plenty of sight words, as it includes 37 from the Dolch word lists!  Picture prompts help with the rest.

I’ve included a color copy for teachers, as well as a student copy in black & white.

Children trace and write the life cycle words, read the simple sentences, color the pictures, then cut & collate the pages into a “just the right size” booklet.

There’s a template with 6 on a page, as well as one with 12 mini-pages on a one-page template, so that you have the option to make Itty Bitty booklets, that are a real paper-saver.

To assist with reading, review the life cycle of a pumpkin with the 12 colorful pocket chart cards.

There’s a set featuring wonderful clip art, as well a set with real life photographs.
Use the smaller sets to play a Memory Match or Speed (sequencing) game.

I also made a bookmark-size template (with 4-on-a-page) for your students. 

You can also review the life cycle with a colorful pumpkin poster.  I've included a black line version your kidos can do as a worksheet.

The 6, pumpkin craftivities, also reinforce the life cycle.
Nothing like a hands-on artsy activity to get your kiddos excited, and completed projects make an awesome bulletin board or hallway display.

Because they are quick, easy & fun, and so different from each other, you could do several.

For example, do the flat Jack-o-lantern life cycle as a homework assignment worksheet, and the pumpkin life cycle wheel as an independent center or whole group activity. 

The pumpkin wheel craftivity is my personal favorite; the green stem acts as a pull-tab to easily rotate the pumpkin to show the various stages.

All of the crafts come in full-color so you can make a quick sample to share, as well as black & white for your kiddos to color.

If you do the “Oh My! Pumpkin Pie” craftivity, spritz with pumpkin-cinnamon air freshener! Your room will smell wonderful.

The ”life cycle-circles” come in 2 sizes, as well as black & white, plus full-color options, with and without word labels.

The packet also includes 15 posters featuring real photographs of the various stages of a pumpkin’s life cycle, which make a lovely bulletin board display, or simply share them with your kiddos to introduce or review the stages.

I think photographs really add to a lesson, as it's always amazing to me how many of my little "punkins" have never been to a pumpkin patch to pick out their pumpkin, or are even aware of the fact that pumpkins, like apples, come in more than one color. 

Click on the link to zip on over to my TpT shop to take a look see at this 85-pager: Life Cycle of a Pumpkin packet.  It's my sincere hope that you & your sweeties enjoy these activities as much as mine do.

While you're over there, I'd so appreciate it if you'd click the "Follow me" button. That way you'll know when I post FREEBIES, & Diane's Dollar Deals.

Thanks in advance; I'm excited to reach 700 followers.  I always design a special freebie when I hit a "milestone". Speaking of FREEBIES, the featured one today is also about pumpkins. 

I call it "Peekin' in a Pumpkin" because you can literally peek inside the paper plate pumpkin "window", and see "pumpkin guts". 

On the front of the paper plate, students draw a Jack-o'-lantern.  My kiddos absolutely LOVE doing this craftivity, and the results, suspended from the ceiling in the hall, are simply "spook-tacular!"

We get lots of "ooh ahh" comments too.

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  The trees are just starting to turn, so it's time for a nature walk.

My poodle pup, Chloe, will be thrilled.  Wishing you a relaxing day; I hope it's invigorating as well.

"When the wind blows through a wood, its mass is cut and closed by every leaf, forming a train of jittery vortices in the air." -Alice Oswald

10 pages.

There are 3 options for this cute pumpkin bowl craft.  You can review 2D shapes and have students draw a Jack-O-Lantern face on the back, or you can teach some pumpkin facts with the pumpkins ARE, HAVE, CAN writing prompt; (I've included a completed sample.) or you can explain the life cycle of a pumpkin, and have students color, trim and glue that circle to the back of their pumpkin bowl.  This freebie has been up-dated and is part of my whopping 85-page Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Packet, in my tpT shop.  For your convenience, I've included a PREVIEW with this freebie here.

My Pumpkin Book Easy Reader

October will soon be here; this easy reader covers a variety of standards, skills and subjects.

You can use the straight version of the booklet and concentrate on reading and writing skills, or you can use the "cut and glue" version (pictured) and incorporate fine motor, cutting, gluing, sequencing, listening and following direction skills as well.  

When students make these easy readers you can review concepts of print with them by asking simple questions: Where is the cover, where is the back page, what is the title? (RI.K5) They will delight in the fact that they are part author as well as the illustrator of the booklet. (RI.K6

You can point out to them that the first word in the sentence is capitalized (L.K2a) and remind them to capitalize it when they rewrite their sentence. Ask them what the end punctuation is. (L.K2b) and again remind them how important it is to include it when they write their sentence. By rewriting sentences or making up additional ones, in some of my easy readers, children are practicing and reinforcing these standards.

Students are also following words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.  (RF.K3a ) They are seeing and understanding that words are separated by spaces in print as they trace and then write them. (RF.K3d)

I specifically choose common high-frequency words in the easy readers and repeat them through out the booklets so that simply via repetition students learn them. (the, of, to, you, she, he, my, is, are, a, do, does, it, etc.) This is also a Common Core State Standard: (RF.K3c)

The text has rhyming words which make it a fun read-aloud as well as covering RF.K2a which is being able to recognize and produce rhuyming words.  Take this opportunity to ask your students what other word(s) rhyme with that word.  Which other ones could have fit that would make sense in the sentence.

This easy reader makes a nice activity for Daily 5 or an independent reading or writing center for October.  When everyone has completed their booklet, be sure to read it together as a whole group to review concepts of print.

Because the life cycle of a pumpkin is also sequenced, this is a nice way to cover a bit of pumpkin science too. so don't forget to point out the various stages as you read it aloud.

Why not laminate a completed booklet, attach Velcro or magnet strips to the back and have students sequence the stages on a flannel or white board?

Children will enjoy taking it home to share with their family, which will reinforce lessons learned at school.

Click on the link to view/download My Pumpkin Booklet

Thank you for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find helfpful.

"It is not so much what s poured into a the student, but what is planted that really counts." -Anonymous