Pumpkin Day Pumpkin Night

Relates a boy's excitement in buying the perfect pumpkin and then making the perfect jack-o-lantern.

Relates a boy's excitement in buying the perfect pumpkin and then making the perfect jack-o-lantern.

Carve out family time for this Halloween Step 1 Step into Reading early reader! Read along as a boy and his family visit a pumpkin patch to pick out perfect autumn gourds! Buoyant rhymes and joyful art evoke the excitement of the season. Pumpkins big and pumpkins small. There are so many—I want them all! Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words for children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story.

Why do so many Americans drive for miles each autumn to buy a vegetable that they are unlikely to eat? While most people around the world eat pumpkin throughout the year, North Americans reserve it for holiday pies and other desserts that celebrate the harvest season and the rural past. They decorate their houses with pumpkins every autumn and welcome Halloween trick-or-treaters with elaborately carved jack-o'-lanterns. Towns hold annual pumpkin festivals featuring giant pumpkins and carving contests, even though few have any historic ties to the crop. In this fascinating cultural and natural history, Cindy Ott tells the story of the pumpkin. Beginning with the myth of the first Thanksgiving, she shows how Americans have used the pumpkin to fulfull their desire to maintain connections to nature and to the family farm of lore, and, ironically, how small farms and rural communities have been revitalized in the process. And while the pumpkin has inspired American myths and traditions, the pumpkin itself has changed because of the ways people have perceived, valued, and used it. Pumpkin is a smart and lively study of the deep meanings hidden in common things and their power to make profound changes in the world around us.

This title features hands-on, outcome-based science activities that reflect the seasons of the year. These activities are explorations and investigations in life, earth, and physical science that use commonly accepted science inquiry skills. Some reproducible charts and pattern pages are included

Four pumpkins find themselves in Alex and Jon's pumpkin patch just before the town's annual Pumpkin Fest. The family rule - "No family pumpkins until the night before Pumpkin Fest" have the boys hiding two of the pumpkins behind the other two in hopes of having them to carve for the pumpkin carving contest.The troubles begin when Alex and Jon have to go to the dentist and dad helps two young girls with their pumpkin selections before closing the patch for the season. What will Alex and Jon do with Scarry and Pumpky?

Contains resources for creating thirty-five storytimes for preschoolers, each with book suggestions, fingerplays, poems, music ideas, and crafts.