Pumpkin Soup: Celebrate 25 years of this timeless classic

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Everyone is happy when they have their own job to do. What jobs and routines do people do to keep everything organised? Do you have any classroom jobs? A collection of outstanding illustrations accompany a great story, that can immerse it's audience with it's charm. Helen Cooper creates a warm, inviting world in her “Pumpkin Soup.” It tells the story of three friends working through the challenges of friendship all while enjoying pumpkin soup. Make a list of the different words that are used instead of ‘said’ in the story, e.g. murmured, snapped, squeaked, wailed. I will say that our girls were so excited that I made the wonderful and tasty soup recipe from Pumpkin Soup, that they eagerly tried it, only to tell me that they didn't like it. [sigh] At least they tasted it. I am noting the recipe for Pink soup here, since we have to return the library book. I think it sounds wonderful. (Scrumptious! Nutritious! Delicious!) We'll see if our girls will at least try it - it's pink, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Write a set of instructions to teach people how to make pumpkin soup (see Resources below). You could also use this video to help you: It is a very nice tale about accepting our own limitations, pushing them, helping each others, and friendship. And pumpkin soup, of course!! I feel this book would provide excellent opportunity for enhancing language skills, exploring food and animals as themes, and could be an excellent starting point for an interesting classroom display.The media in this book I believe is colored pencils. The fine lines of colored pencil allow it to look more realistic. The color used in the book was also vibrant in some places and neutral in others, giving the reader more to look at and the urge to keep reading it to find out what other illustrations come next. I would say that the artistic convention in this book is expressionism because the illustration looks as if they want to convey what the characters are feeling. I feel the moral of the story is to show children to not be afraid to try new things; it is OK to make mistakes and to not give up, be patient and to not judge a book by its cover. One of the illustrations shows the animals making their soup, as seen through the window. Can you draw a picture with a view through a window (looking into or out of a building)? The line and shape about a book go hand in hand with the description of the objects drawn. As said before everything that is drawn in the book looks real life and you’d be able to find these objects in real life. Since the book is drawn softly, it goes a long with the books fun theme. The general messages portrayed in to book include promoting teamwork; working together for a positive end result and helping others.

Throughout the story it contains repetitions which could allow children to join in whilst the story is being read to them. The use of capitals in the story allows the children to see which words are being shouted this will allow the children to start thinking of expression whilst they read stories. The mask can provide a source of inspiration for a pumpkin lantern design which can be cut into a pumpkin. Talk about the pumpkin as you make the lantern, the smell, the feel and how it looks both inside and out. Plant seeds Her books have been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Library Association Kate Greenaway Medal – twice.Put the beets in a medium-size saucepan. cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, for 30 to 40 minutes. Drain the beets and let them cool. The skins will then be easy to peel. Chop up the beets. (Make sure you wear an apron because beet juice is very pink!) The book had a lot of rhyming in the book which is fun for kids, and also some repeating parts that the children could participate with, especially when the main characters were talking out loud instead of the narrator telling the story. This could definitely be a book you could increase participation with. The story got a bit scary at one point, even though the fear was limited to the imaginations of two of the friends. Look at the illustrations of Cat and Squirrel waiting on the steps. Could you draw a series of pictures like this to show some events that have taken place in a morning / afternoon?

Retell the story to a friend. Can you use different voices and expressions? Listen to the audiobook version of the story. The language is expressive and descriptive, which sets the story in sentences which move at an exciting pace. ‘When no one was watching he peeled them, and sliced them, and chopped them, and diced them, and squished them and plopped them into the cooking pot’. Cat plays a bagpipe and Squirrel plays the banjo. How do these instruments sound? How are they played? My personal opinion is that this is an excellent and enjoyable book for children in a year 3 or 4 class as it offers an exciting, interesting storyline, as well as areas for development and creativity. The language is advanced and adventurous, with tools such as onomatopoeia: ‘rustling’ and ‘scuffling’, providing an opportunity for children to develop linguistic technique and skill.The book Delicious by Helen Cooper is an adorable and interactive book that will be extremely fun if used with your own children or students at school. There are many features to this book that I took a liking to and gave a prestigious five star rating to. In this book review we will look at the elements of design in picture books and go in detail what made me favor this book so much. Space was definitely a huge part in this book; a lot of the illustrations were just the characters engaging in conversation with each other. In other illustrations they were shown in a huge field searching for different ingredients to put in their soup. Also, they detached the bugs from the story in many different places showing a side story that the bugs wanted to save the soup they were wasting. The story was written in third person describing all the events taking place. So the viewpoint was coming from a story teller. The tale itself was a pretty good one, with everyone wanting to try each other's jobs and taking each other's skills for granted. On the whole, it's a fun story to read aloud and would be a good precursor to a discussion about fighting among friends, different skillsets and wanting to try different things. It has an easy recipe for pumpkin soup at the end of the story and our girls are excited to try it. added later] We made the pumpkin soup, and while our girls were pretty excited that we were making the recipe from the book (and they even got to add their own "pipkins" of salt), they weren't as enthusiastic about the taste. I thought it was lovely. Oh well...

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and saute the onion on very low heat until it is translucent. This will take about 5 minutes. (Be careful not to let it burn!) Look at the facial expressions of the characters in each illustration. How are they feeling? What might they be thinking? We’re still looking for the perfect recipe for pumpkin soup, ours always tastes bland and boring. We’d love you to share your favourite pumpkin soup recipe in the comments 🙂 Helen Cooper is an author and illustrator whose work includes classic titles such as The Bear Under the Stairs, Pumpkin Soup, The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed and Tatty Ratty.

Engage children with digital learning

The narrative is very text heavy. Cooper relies more on words than illustrations. This could make it less appealing to younger readers with shorter attention spans. However, she does use different fonts and formats to help make the text more interesting. First, the lines in this book are rounded and soft giving life to all the characters and objects in the story. Everything is drawn so it looks real, not just a one dimensional character that usually would look fake. Every object drawn has multiple characteristics about it, allowing a child to relate to something in real life. The Pumpkin Soup books celebrate pumpkins, and cooking, and family life. Full of scrumptious colour and a riotous array of vegetables, they encourage an appetite for cooking and discovering new foods, whilst also exploring different character traits and how we all get along. All three have been highly acclaimed, and translated into many languages. The value of the book conveys different levels and dimensions in the illustrations. It goes a long with the books story line because they are looking for a lot of different vegetables and the illustrations capture the many levels of vegetation they are searching in. The author uses repetition of words such as ‘scrumptious’, ‘nutritious’ and ‘delicious’ which would offer reinforcement for children expanding their vocabulary using the book.