Big Pumpkin Retell Literacy Center Activity
Create your own Big Pumpkin retelling activity with this free download for kindergarten.
This is how I created a Big Pumpkin retell activity to go in our retell center as a storytelling option for my kindergarten students.
Let me show you what’s in our set and give you the materials to make it happen in your classroom too.
It’s one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman just before Halloween.
It is one of the first stories we read that has a problem/solution, pattern and is a growing story.
If you’re unfamiliar with this book – that’s okay! It’s similar to these growing-pattern books:
- The Enormous Turnip
- The Enormous Potato
- The Giant Carrot
They would work great too for this center if you have them. Simply follow the same steps below to make your own retelling set with the book you have.
They read they act, they use lots of great vocabulary and are developing fantastic reading habits all while continuing to build their love of reading.
My kinders get to choose the book(s) they want to retell while they are at this literacy center. This one is usually a favorite.
What’s in my retell set
Here are the props I gathered for free (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart.
I scanned and printed characters from the book. Then I laminated them, hole punched them and added strings.
I also made a pumpkin from a scrap of fabric wrapped around a toilet paper roll. The fabric is simply tucked inside with the brown paper stem (rolled up paper) shoved down inside the roll’s tube to keep the fabric tucked inside the roll.
The detached vine is two pieces of construction paper laminated together.
How to make your own Big Pumpkin retell activity
If you plan to make this a year-long literacy center, I highly recommend that you read the Retell Literacy Center Directions for more details and making everything run smooth.
Because you can make this kindergarten activity yourself and once you and your students are hooked on retelling you’ll want to make this a year-long thing.
Here are the materials you’ll need… (may include affiliate book links to Amazon)
Materials
- Scanned Pictures (or these feltboard pictures printed out)
- String
- Construction Paper (green)
- Brown Paper lunch bag
- Toilet Paper Roll
- Orange Fabric Scrap
- Big Pumpkin Book by Erica Silverman
- Big Pumpkin Audio/CD Version (Video) – Use this before you ever do your first read aloud so you can nail the voices. It’s awesome.
What to do
Take your book copy and props and place them together. A container like an open basket, a book bin or a large Ziploc bag will work!
If you don’t want to create character necklaces, like I did, you can create puppets with popsicle sticks.
But all they need to do is have the book and the materials and use the props to tell as much as they can:
- about the story
- from the story
- with the story (following along)
Encourage kinders to use as many words from the text as they can remember. With a patterned story like this one, it’s pretty easy, especially if you read this story multiple times before you release it to your students.
Conclusion
There you have it – how to make a Big Pumpkin retell activity for your class. I love that it doesn’t require much to get it done. {wink}
If you like this activity, check out this list of 20 more famous stories that are great for retelling in kindergarten. Most of them are just as simple to pull together and I’ve found all of the downloadable resources for you.
