Pumpkin Unit Study Plans

The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great book featuring a good-nature sheep farmer from Australia. This book is a Five in a Row book that teaches different character lessons as well as lessons about Australia.


View all my reviews.




I've started a Goodreads account on the recommendation of my daughter. I've only just begun to list the books I read. We are reading the above book next week in conjunction with our Pumpkin Unit Study.

For the first week we are going to study Pumpkins using living books as our base. The next week we will start The Pumpkin Runner along with the Five in A Row curriculum. Our study of Australia is going to be really neat.

I am using Galloping the Globe and Evan-Moor's Australia to help with planning our unit. Gail Gibbon's The Pumpkin Book is one of the books we are using.

Here are some links I found for our study:
Activity Village has a whole bunch of links for Australia.
Education World has a lesson titled Where in the World is Australia.
Lapbooks by Carisa has many lapbooks--including one on pumpkins.
Map Library has printable outline maps of states, countries and continents. Great resource.
HomeschoolShare has a Five in a Row lesson/lapbook on The Pumpkin Runner. Wonderful! All the lapbook components are here, free!

We are going to watch the Wiggle's Safari and visit a pumpkin patch as well as carve a pumpkin. A good friend of Marissa's taught me a song to help remember the longitude and latitude lines. It is 'sung' to the same tune as "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around".

Latitude, latitude, round and round--move hips around like you are using a hola hoop.
Longitude, longitude, up and down--move up and down.

Cute, huh? Then she said put your hands on the equator--and put her hands on her hips. :) Bethany will definitely love this little song.

After we've enjoyed the carved pumpkin, we are going to let the pumpkin get all rotten. I'm going to have Bethany chart her observations as the days/weeks go by.

I'll try to take time to post pictures after we visit the pumpkin patch and finish our lapbook.