The Pumpkin Life Cycle (and expository writing)

This social living Promethean flipchart teaches students the life cycle of pumpkins, and incorporates expository writing to describe pumpkins. This flipchart opens with a title page with pumpkins and fall motif. The next page gives a list of objectives for the lesson. The next page allows the teachers to explore the background knowledge of the students for pumpkins and fall. The students may have already learned about fall, so this would be ideal to open a discussion about things that happen during this part of the year. The next page is a K-W-L chart for pumpkins (what I know, what I want to know, and what I've learned) the K and W portion would be done at this time as a class, in which students can discuss what they know about pumpkins and what still spikes their curiosity. Included on this page is a cute streaming video that contains information about pumpkins and the life cycle of a pumpkin (make sure your system has a media player that will permit this file). Following the video, the teacher may include a story about the life cycle of pumpkins (one recommendation: From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer). If you don't have a book, you can simply discuss the video shown, then, as a class (or in groups or pairs) fill in the L portion, so students can discuss what they've learned. The next page allows for review and closure. The last page is an expository writing project (best for grades kindergarten and above - if you are teaching this to Pre-K, you can adjust this activity to their level by providing them with picture word cards and have them glue on a piece of paper). Students are shown a rich colorful picture of real pumpkins, and they are invited to write their description of a pumpkin.
Pre-K - picture-word cards to glue on a paper
K-1 - list describing words, with simple sentences
2nd - more advanced sentences
3rd - paragraph