Big Pumpkin: Writing Summaries and Art Project

Today we got down to business and started our focus on summarizing stories. I found a really cool method online called Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then. Which teaches the basic five things you want to look for when you are summarizing a story. I also wanted the kick-off into summarizing to be fun, we made an art project to go along with it. :)

We started off by reading a Halloween book, Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. It's one of my favorites, and it's also super easy to summarize.

After we read the story, I wrote the word "Somebody" up on the white board, and told the kids that when you summarize, the first thing you want to look for is the main character. Who is this story about? That's our "Somebody". So is this case, "Somebody" is the witch.

The next thing I wrote on the board was "Wanted". The "Somebody always wants something.He/she has a goal. What was it? In this story the witch wants to make pumpkin pie.

After that come "But". This is the problem in the story. What is stopping the main character from reaching their goal? What is stopping the witch from making pumpkin pie? In our story the "But" is...The witch wanted to make pumpkin pie "But" the pumpkin was stuck on the vine.

Then we get to "So". We already know the problem, "So" what is the main character going to do about it? How is he/she going to try and solve or resolve the problem? In Big Pumplin it looks like this, "So" the witches friends come over and they all work together to pull the pumpkin off the vine.

Lastly in the "Then" after the problem is solved, then what happens, or what do the characters learn? In our story it's simple, "Then" the witch makes pumpkin pie.

Altogether is looked like this on our board:

The next step is putting it all together into 2 or 3 sentences. I had my boys write theirs on a piece of paper with a pumpkin shape on it.

Lincoln's

Ivan's

Then for fun, we made covers for our writing summaries, using tissue paper and Mod Podge. When everything was dry we cut them out and stapled them to the front of the summaries. Then we hung them up on our closet door to display until Halloween.

I plan on using this outline every day with pictures books, until the kids (Lincoln mainly) get the hang of it, and then we'll work up to a little bit harder books, and then harder, and so on. We probably won't do a fun art project every time though. But I plan on this being our writing curriculum for the next little while.