Pumpkin Circle

Pumpkin Circle is a great book for this time of year.  Kindergarteners at my school always study apples and pumpkins, learn their parts and life cycles, and do a compare-contrast project- all totally language-y stuff!  Pumpkin Circle was turned into a rather strange companion film (but kids watch, riveted) you can view on the Described and Captioned Media Program site, if you are a member.  If you don't have access to the book or movie, check out this cute video of it being read as a bedtime story:



Apples and pumpkins are great to compare-contrast using Kidspiration, Inspiration (both available as 30-day trials), or the web-based version, Webspiration (still totally free and the same as the software programs).  It's hard to share one of these files by blog, but you could recreate something like my activity here:

Using Kidspiration, Inspiration, or Webspiration, kids can click-drag ideas into groups and meaningful connections.