Trick or treat! It’s Halloween. It’s time to carve pumpkins! Where did this fun tradition come from?
Back to Teacher View
Student View
Michael Patrick/News Sentinel/Imagn Content Agency (Left Pumpkin); Klaus Kaulitzki/Shutterstock.com (Second Left Pumpkin); Federico Miletto/Media Bakery (Middle Pumpkin); Itziar Aio/Getty Images (Second RIght Pumpkin); Photo by Cathy Scola/Getty Images (Right Pumpkin)
The History of Jack-o’-Lanterns
Orange you glad we carve pumpkins?
By Meg Richardson
From the October/November 2023 Issue
Learning Objective: Learn how the tradition of carving pumpkins came to be.
Hard Winters
Shutterstock.com
Halloween started long ago in Ireland. People celebrated it right before the start of winter.
Winter was hard long ago! There was no electricity. People could not turn on lights or heaters. They didn’t want bad luck during this hard time.
So they started making jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween. These jack-o’-lanterns had scary faces. People thought they would scare away bad luck!
Early Jack-o’-Lanterns
John Gollop/Alamy Stock Photo
turnip
The first jack-o’-lanterns were not made of pumpkins. People made them with potatoes or turnips. Can you imagine a potato jack-o’-lantern?
The jack-o’-lanterns had small candles inside them. People put them outside their houses or carried them if they were walking at night. The jack-o’-lanterns were like flashlights!
Jack-o’-Lanterns in the U.S.
Jim McMahon/Mapman ®
Later many people moved from Ireland to the United States. There were a lot of pumpkins in the United States. People could carve pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns.
Other people thought carving pumpkins looked fun. They tried it too!
Today millions of people in the United States carve jack-o’-lanterns out of pumpkins for Halloween. Have you ever helped make a jack-o’-lantern
Jack-o’-Lantern Timeline
Christopher Murray/EyeEm (Turnip Head); Lewis W. Hine/George Eastman Museum/Getty Images (Carving Pumpkins); SolStock/Getty Images (Child)
200 Years Ago: People carved turnips and potatoes in Ireland.
150 Years Ago: Irish people came to the U.S. and carved pumpkins.
Today: People love carving pumpkins!
video
(1)
Activities
(4)
Skills Activities
Answer Key
(1)
More About the Article
Social Studies Focus
Long ago and today
In-Person Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Small group; whole group; independent reading
Pairings and Text Connections
From the Storyworks 2 archive:
- “Should Halloween Always Be on a Saturday?” (October/November 2022) Students can discuss how this debate and the Past to Present both connect to Halloween.
- “The History of Birthday Cake” (September 2023) Students can compare the histories of two traditions.
Before-Reading Resources
- Text Preview Bookmarks:
(10 minutes) Kids can cut out the nonfiction bookmark
and use it to preview the text.
- Play the Vocabulary Slideshow
(5 minutes) Help students become familiar with vocabulary
words they will see in the article.
(10 minutes) Kids can cut out the nonfiction bookmark
and use it to preview the text.
(5 minutes) Help students become familiar with vocabulary
words they will see in the article.
Suggested Reading Focus
Nonfiction text features (20 minutes)
- Point out the orange bar on the right side of the page. Do students know what this is? Hint: It says in the orange headline. (It’s a timeline.)
- Explain that a timeline shows the order in which things happened. You can see how long ago each thing happened on the arrow.
After-Reading Skills Practice (15 minutes for each activity)
- Quiz: Comprehension check
- A Halloween Story: Parts of speech practice - Students can fill in the blanks to make a silly story about trick-or-treating.
- Color By Vowel: Phonics (Long-e) - Students can color a jack-o’-lantern and practice phonics skills.
After-Reading Video
- Watch a fun video called "Investigate Pumpkins" about many different kinds of pumpkins!
Text-to-Speech