Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 16
Word Count: 860

Book Summary
Landon remembers last Halloween, when he really messed up his pumpkin while trying to carve a jack-o'-lantern. This Halloween, he works with his dad on a plan to plant, grow, and harvest his own pumpkins so he will have enough for himself and his younger brother to practice carving. Landon successfully carries out his plan and ends up using the three R's--reduce, reuse, and recycle--in the process.

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Summarize

Objectives

• Mentally summarize sections of text to make meaning
• Sequence story events
• Identify and understand the use of adjectives in text
• Identify and use the prefix re-

Materials

• Book -- Landon's Pumpkin (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Sequence events, adjectives, prefix re- worksheets

Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reusable.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: allowances, carving, compost, frost, harvest, landfill, nutrients, recycle, reduced, shoots, stubborn, temperature, tilled

Build Background

• Ask students to share their experiences with pumpkins and carving jack-o'-lanterns. Invite them to share what they know about gardening and growing plants from seeds.
• Extend the discussion by inviting students to explain what they know about the three R's: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students a copy of the book. Show them the front and back covers and read the title. Ask students to tell who they think the boy on the cover might be based on the title and the illustration (Landon). Ask who they think the main character in the book is (Landon). Based on the cover illustration, ask students to share what they think the book might be about.
• Show students the title page. Talk about the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Strategy: Summarize information

• Ask students how summarizing information while reading helps them understand and remember what they have read. (Accept all answers students can justify.) Review or explain that summarize means to pull out the most important information and then restate it in their own words--either verbally or on paper. It is up to readers to decide what information is most important and what isn't.
• Model how to summarize.
  Think-aloud: As I read this book, I am going to look at the illustrations and think about what I have read. I will stop at the end of each chapter and ask myself what information was most important in that section, or summarize, what I have read so far. I will keep reading and summarizing what I've read in each chapter. This strategy will help me remember the most important information in the book.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at chapter headings, illustrations, and the glossary.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• As students preview the book, reinforce new vocabulary by incorporating it into the discussion of the illustrations. For example, on page 7, you might say: It looks as if Landon is working with compost. Do you know what compost is and how it is used? (decayed organic matter that is added to garden soil to provide nutrients)
• Model using word-attack strategies to pronounce unfamiliar words. For example, show students how to keep reading to identify an unfamiliar word. Have students find the word allowances on page 5. Have them skip the word and read to the end of the sentence, looking for clues to help them with the unfamiliar word. Say: The word allowances contains a word I know: allow. I know how to read allow, so I will go back to the word and see if I can read the unfamiliar word (allowances). I also see that an allowance is something I can spend. Have students read the word in the sentence to check that it makes sense.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find out what happens to Landon. Remind them to stop occasionally to summarize in their minds the important information to help them understand and remember what they are reading.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 6. Encourage those who finish before everyone else to go back and reread the text.
• Model summarizing a chapter.
  Think-aloud: As I finished the chapter, I stopped to think to myself what important things happened. Landon saw an ad in the newspaper that reminded him about messing up his pumpkin last Halloween. He talked to his dad about his plan to buy seeds and grow his own pumpkins. His dad thought it was a good plan.
• Have students read to the end of the book. Remind them to think about what they read after each chapter and summarize the important information in their minds to help them better understand the story.

Have students make a question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read and understand the word.

Have students underline the major event on each page.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Ask students to turn to the table of contents. Invite volunteers to summarize the important information in one or two of the chapters.
• Write student summaries on the board. Discuss how summarizing information in the chapters makes it easier to remember the important points in the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence events

• Discussion: Ask students to tell Landon's problem at the beginning of the story and the steps he took to solve his problem. (He needed more pumpkins to carve so he planted seeds and grew his own pumpkins.)
• Introduce and model the skill: Explain that good readers organize events in a story in the order in which they happen.
• For example, have students reread pages 4 through 6 aloud and model sequencing.
  Think-aloud: Thinking about what happens first, second, next, and last in a story helps me remember and understand what I read. In this story, for example, the first thing that happens is that Landon remembers messing up a pumpkin last Halloween. Next, he makes a plan for growing his own pumpkins. Then he discusses his plan with his dad.
• Check for understanding: Have students reflect on the book and use the sentences they underlined in the Student Reading section to tell what happens to Landon in the second chapter, titled "Planting." Encourage students to use sequencing words, such as first, second, next, and last (next, Landon mixes compost in the soil and plants the seeds; then, Landon protects his new plants from frost; and last, Landon harvests a dozen pumpkins).
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequencing worksheet. Discuss their responses.

Grammar and Mechanics: Adjectives

• Have students turn to pages 4 and 5 in the book. Review or explain that an adjective is a word that describe a noun--a person, place, or thing. Additionally, adjectives help tell what something looks, smells, sounds, tastes, acts, or feels like. Ask students to find the words that describe the ad and the vegetables on page 4 (bright, newspaper, orange, yellow, green). Ask them to find the words that describe the brother and the face on page 5 (five-year-old, scary).
• Have students turn to page 6 and identify three adjectives in the text. Write the words on the board and ask students to tell what the adjectives describe (recycle describes bin, pumpkin describes seeds, sick-looking describes jack-o'-lantern, good describes plan).
• Check for understanding: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the adjectives worksheet.

Word Work: Prefix re-

• Write the prefix re- on the board. Discuss the meaning of the prefix--again or back. Have students turn to page 14 in the book. List and discuss the three R's: reduce, recycle, and reuse. Define the root words and explain how the prefix changes them.
• Check for understanding: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the prefix worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their books independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

• Give students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Encourage them to use colorful adjectives to introduce the book to their audience.

Science and Writing Connection

• Bring in or have students bring in a variety of vegetable seeds. Read directions for planting and gather the necessary supplies. Plant seeds in pots in the classroom. Have students care for the plants and record their observations in a journal.

Social Studies Connection

• Have students plan a recycling activity in the classroom. As a class, research recycling projects in your school, city, or town. Collect paper, cans, and bottles to contribute to the program. Have students brainstorm ways to reuse discarded items in the classroom. Then reuse the items as a class.

• consistently summarize important information in their own words to make meaning of the text
• identify the correct sequence of story events
• accurately identify and understand the use of adjectives in text
• correctly identify and use the prefix re-

Comprehension Checks

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric