Welcome to the third year of Learning through Literature’s Homeschool Co-op Curriculum. If this is your first time here, this book: The Pumpkin Runner, is the sixth of 13 books that will be covered as part of our homeschool co-op year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States. This book, and one other, Hanna’s Cold Winter marks a departure from the United States regions and will be used as a quick review lesson of the World Continents and Oceans. The class has been created for 1st – 4th graders and is the culmination of three years of Learning through Literature together. If this is your first time looking around, please check out our first year, Learning the ABC’s through Literature. Or the second year, Learning through Literature for Homeschool Co-op.
Each year was inspired by Jane Lambert’s Five in a Row Curriculum and uses many of the same books, but with lessons, discussion questions, and printables reworked to be more useful for a homeschool co-op.
For this third year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States, we will take TWO classes to cover each book. If you are using this for a co-op, you will find “Class One” and further down the page, “Class Two”.
Thanks for stopping by!
A note about this lesson:
Two books in our Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States curriculum are being used as a review of the Continents. This book, as well as Hanna’s Cold Winter, will both only feature 1 week of lessons instead of the usual two.
In our co-op, we combined this lesson with a fall pumpkin party, where we included the pumpkin lesson from Lynn Seddon’s Exploring Nature with Children curriculum. We also used exploding pumpkins (science), drawing pumpkins (art), pie baking (cooking) and pumpkin relay races where they had to eat slices of pumpkin along the way (gym). The day was a great success and capped off with warm pumpkin pie for all. Contact me if you’d like more details about how we did this so you can try it in your co-op. It was loads of fun!
The Pumpkin Runner
Marsha Diana Arnold
If you’d like to review the book first, a read-aloud version can be found here:
Class 1
Things I Need:
- The Pumpkin Runner Book
- Map of the World, especially showing Australia* – different than your normal state map
- Learning the USA through Lit Journal – The Pumpkin Runner Add-In Pages
- Laptop – if you want to show brief clips of the real Cliff Young
- Scissors, Gluesticks, Pencils
Before the class: set out the new journal pages, including The Pumpkin Runner copywork page. If they don’t bring their own scissors, glue sticks, and pencils, set those out too.
Homework:
- Label the continents (in the Add-In Pages) and memorize for next week if they don’t know them already
- Joshua Summerhayes (the real Cliff Young) has many good qualities. Choose one to write about and give examples about how we saw this in him, why this is a good character trait, and a time when you have demonstrated this. (Since we have a mixed class, with all writing, we have encouraged at least one sentence per grade. If you have non-writers, I also have let parents write from their children’s dictation.)
As the class is arriving: Copywork
Encourage the students to complete the copywork on their desk. Set up maps if you haven’t already. Our class often had trouble staying on task during this 5-minute block, so we implemented “the quiet game” and tried to beat our record each week. Each week they beat their record and within a few weeks, we had no trouble staying quiet.
Review:
Instead of a review, we took a moment to explain that today was a detour from our usual study of the United States, and instead, we were zooming out to see the seven continents. For many, this will be a review, but good to at least quickly cover it.
We discussed:
- The United States is divided by states and regions (so far we have discussed several regions)
- The World is also divided in several ways. After asking the class if they knew any, we briefly shared that it can be divided by Continents, Countries, Hemispheres (Equator/Latitude), Prime Meridian (Grenich England, Longitude), etc
Introduce the Story:
- Tell the class today’s story takes place in Australia. (point on the map)
- Tell them that parts of this story are true, but parts are not. Can they pick out the elements of a “tall tale?” in the story (we made a list on the board as we read)
Read the Story:
As you read through, there are several continents mentioned. Find them on the map as you read.
Some other points good for discussion (either during the story or afterwards):
- What parts of the story tall tale? What parts real? (a good review of what a Tall Tale is, especially if you have already shared The Gullywasher with the class.)
- Isn’t this guy great? generous. Honest. Not concerned with what others think. Discuss some good qualities about Joshua Summerhayes and encourage the class to share examples of “why” – a great way to further reading comprehension.
Homework:
- Label the continents (in the Add-In Pages) and memorize for next week if they don’t know them already
- Joshua Summerhayes (the real Cliff Young) has many good qualities. Choose one to write about and give examples about how we saw this in him, why this is a good character trait, and a time when you have demonstrated this. (Since we have a mixed class, with all writing, we have encouraged at least one sentence per grade. If you have non-writers, I also have let parents write from their children’s dictation.)
After the Story:
We spent some time going through the questions about, and we also discussed the actual distance run. How far is 900 Kilometers? How far would he have to run each day? Try to find a more well-known city that is about a 10-12 hour drive from you and explain that he RAN this in 5 days. Most in our class thought this was false – but you can show them the clips below of the REAL Cliff Young, who actually did this.
It may be good to preview several of the videos below to familiarize yourself with his life a little before reading this story with the class. Then you can show and play/pause as you show the class. There is also a movie on Amazon called, “Cliffy”, which aside from two short scenes with kissing, is not so bad. I wouldn’t show it to my own kids, for this reason, but you may be able to pull a few scenes from it if you choose to. It is not horrible, and a good background of his life.
Extra Out-of-Class Activity:
If you have more time or can persuade your co-op to do something a little extra special, we planned a 2-hour co-op wide Pumpkin Festival around this book. In addition to the things mentioned above, I sliced a pie pumpkin into tiny pieces, covered with cinnamon and sugar, then roasted for about 20-30 minutes on 400 degrees in our co-op oven.
Pie Pumpkin, diced, covered with melted butter, cinnamon and sugar. Cook at 425 degrees for 20-30 minutes
We organized the kids up into relay teams, where they had to run to a point across the field, eat a piece of pumpkin (for strength), and then run back. First team with everyone through won.
As an added bonus, we had a power wheels jeep (remember the Auntie in the story), so before the kids ran, we had our smaller co-op kiddos drive the Jeep, with the Pumpkins, out to the halfway point. There are so many things you can do. I shared some pics below to give some ideas.
from above:
In our co-op, we combined this lesson with a fall pumpkin party, where we included the pumpkin lesson from Lynn Seddon’s Exploring Nature with Children curriculum. We also used exploding pumpkins (science), drawing pumpkins (art), pie baking (cooking) and pumpkin relay races where they had to eat slices of pumpkin along the way (gym). The day was a great success and capped off with warm pumpkin pie for all. Contact me if you’d like more details about how we did this so you can try it in your co-op. It was loads of fun!
