Build Background

• Bring a pumpkin to school. Allow students to touch, hold and smell the pumpkin. Ask questions that allow students to describe the pumpkin. What does the pumpkin feel like? What does the pumpkin look like? What does the pumpkin smell like?
• Have students share their experiences of gathering, eating, or carving pumpkins.
• Ask students to share a time when they felt crowded. Ask them how they felt.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

• Show students the front and back cover of the book. Ask students to share what they see in the illustrations. Explain that the girl on the cover is named Maria. Explain that Maria is the main character in the story. Read the title and author’s name. Ask students to predict what they think the story is about based on the cover information.
• Show students the title page. Encourage them to make predictions based on the information on this page. Have students predict how many pumpkins they think Maria is going to count in the story. Encourage students to explain their thinking.

Introduce the Strategy

• Tell students that good readers think and ask questions when they read books. Explain to the students that this helps them understand what they are reading and also makes reading more fun. Ask students to look at the cover and title page again and to think about how Maria gets the pumpkins she counts.
• Think-aloud: When I look at the information on the front cover and title page there are many things I wonder about. I know that the story is called Maria Counts Pumpkins. I wonder how Maria gets the pumpkins that she counts. I wonder if her parents are going to take her to the store to buy the pumpkins or if she is going to go to a pumpkin patch and count them there.
• Invite the students to look at the illustrations on the cover and title page again and share what they wonder about. Record the students’ wonderings in a list on the board.

Introduce Vocabulary

• Go through each page of the book with the students. Use the language patterns they will encounter in the text. Ask students how many pumpkins Maria has on each page. Have them count the pumpkins and say the number words that correspond to the number of pumpkins.
• Point out the words at the bottom of the page. Explain that the words on the page tell the story and they are read from left to right. Demonstrate how to read from left to right, pointing to each word as you read. Have the students read a page while pointing to each word.
• Write the high-frequency word has on a white board. Read the word to the students. Turn to page 3 in the book. Read the sentence to the students while pointing to the words. Frame the word has. Flip through each page of the book with students and invite them to count the number of times has appears.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Tell students that as they read the book they should continue to think and ask questions during the reading.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Give students their copies of the book. Have them put a sticky note on page 7 and read to the end of that page. Remind students to point to the words and use reading strategies to figure out unknown words. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• Listen to individual students read the text orally. Monitor their use of reading strategies and intervene when necessary to prompt for strategy use. Encourage students to share what they wonder about as they read the text.
• Review and model questions and wondering while reading.
• Think-aloud: There were so many things we wondered about when we looked at the cover and title page. The book answered some of our wonderings. Maria got the pumpkins as gifts from her relatives. When I was reading the book my mind kept wondering. I wondered what different relatives would give Maria pumpkins. I wondered where Maria ’s relatives got all those pumpkins. I also wondered if there would be room for Maria, her dog and all the pumpkins on the stoop.
• Reread the We Wonder Chart you created with the students. Invite students to share what they wondered about. Add their wonderings to the chart.
• Have students finish reading the book independently.

    Tell the students to make a small question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce that wondering made reading more fun and enjoyable. Reread and discuss the wondering chart.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Problem/Solution

• Discussion: Ask students what they thought of the story.
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that most stories have problems and that most of the time problems get solved in the story.
• Think-aloud: I know that when authors write stories they usually have one or two main characters. I know that stories often tell the problems that the character has. It helps me understand the story if I think about the problems and how the problem could get solved. In the story Maria Counts Pumpkins the problem is that Maria received too many pumpkins as gifts and she did not have room for them and her dog on the stoop. The solution was that Maria holds her dog in her lap.
• Check for understanding: Have students work with a partner. Have one of them tell the problem in the story and the second tell what the solution was. Then switch parts and tell the problem and solution again.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the left side of the problem/solution worksheet. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the discussion: Ask the students how many pumpkins they think they could count. Instruct students to use the last page to draw themselves counting pumpkins. Have them label the number of pumpkins they drew using a number word and a number.

Phonemic Awareness: Word awareness

• Have students listen as you say the sentence Maria counts pumpkins. Have students show the number of words in the sentence using their fingers. Read the sentence a second time while you point to your fingers. Say: The sentence Maria counts pumpkins has three words.
• Tell the students that you are going to read some sentences from the book. Ask them to use their fingers to show how many words are in the sentence.

Phonics: Initial consonant p

• Have students listen as you say the word pumpkin. Say: I hear the /p/ sound at the beginning of this word. Have students turn to page 4 and read the sentence. Have them locate and read the word that has the /p/ sound.
• Draw a large pumpkin on a piece of chart paper. Write the words puppy, pond, and purple inside the pumpkin, saying each as you go and underlining the p. Have students brainstorm other words that begin with the initial consonant p. Write the words in the pumpkin and underline the letter p. Have students echo as you read the words aloud.

Grammar and Mechanics: Exclamation point

• Turn to page 9 in the book. Read the sentence aloud expressively. Point to the exclamation point. Explain to the students that this mark is called an exclamation point and that the author put it at the end of the sentence to remind the reader to read the words with surprise.
• Have the students read the sentence with you using an expressive voice. Have students look in other books to find and read sentences with an exclamation point. 

Vocabulary: Reading number words

• Have the students turn to page 4 in their book and count the number of pumpkins on the page. Ask students to locate and underline the number word that represents how many pumpkins there are. Have them write the numerical symbol that shows the amount in the picture.
• Have students locate the number words in the book and read the words. Ask them to use their fingers show the numerical value of each word. Give students the categorizing worksheet. 

Independent Reading

• Remind students that when they read orally they should read at the same rate as they talk. Have students chorally read page 7 to practice reading at the appropriate rate. Model reading page 8 expressively. Point to the exclamation point on this page. Tell students that this mark asks them to read with expression. Ask students to read page 8 expressively. Have students reread the book with a partner to practice fluent, expressive reading.

Home Connection

• Give students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Writing and Art Connection

• Write the sentence: ________has three ______. Ask students to fill in the first blank with their name and the second blank with something they have three of (toy cars, dolls stuffed animals, brothers). Have the students create an illustration to match their writing.

Math Connection

• Have students weigh the pumpkin you brought to class, count the number of ridges and use string to measure how big around it is. Have students count the number of seeds in the pumpkin, and then roast and eat the seeds.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently raise questions while reading
• identify problem and solution in a story
• consistently count the number of words in a sentence
• read words that contain initial consonant p
• read sentences that contain exclamation points expressively
• read the counting words one to seven and match them with their numerical symbol and quantity.