October 26, 2016 : It’s Pumpkin Time!

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in The Denver Post. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers

Click here to download the PDF for this lesson

Activities:

1. What will your Halloween pumpkin look like? Draw a picture of your planned pumpkin. Paste scary newspaper words around your pumpkin. Will you paint your pumpkin or carve it? How did you make that decision?

2. In the newspaper, circle as many words and pictures as you can find for all the different foods in the gourd family.

3. Create a mini pumpkin notebook. Collect newspaper recipes for pumpkin foods. Next, collect pictures and words for all sorts of ready - to - eat pumpkin foods for sale in local stores a nd restaurants. Include pumpkin - flavored drinks, like flavored coffee. With a friend, and with help from an adult, make one of the pumpkin recipes.

4. What do these have to do with pumpkins: (a) turnips, (b ) cutting saw, (c) explorers and (d) watermelons?

5. Use the pumpkin face you carved or painted as the character in a Halloween story. Write a story that explains the expression on your pumpkin. Try to bring other gourd family foods, like squash and cucumbers, into your story.

Mini Page activities meet many state and national educational standards. Each week we identify standards that relate to The Mini Page content and offer activities that will help your students reach them.

This week's standard:
Students understand customs and traditions of their own culture. (Social Studies: Culture)

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)