Soup From a Stone...Fancy That!

         Last week was a wonderful week - all about community and sharing and stone soup.  We began the week reading the classic version of Stone Soup written by Marcia Brown. We then acted out the story of the value of sharing and coming together as a community using a big pot and play vegetables from our classroom.  The kids LOVE any time we act out stories (and were frequently seen reenacting the story during free play:)  Throughout the rest of the week we read other versions of Stone Soup and did lots of comparing and contrasting of the different settings, characters and story lines.  

The stone soup would be even better if only we had some carrots.

We also made Stone Soup collages.  I cut out rectangles and squares.  The children cut the corners to make circles (onions), ovals (corn and potatoes), cut a diagonal line to make triangles (carrots) and in half to make rectangles (green beans).  The kids then used a marker to add details.  We added a real rock to our Stone Soup collages.  The kids also wrote the words Stone Soup on the top of their pots.  I loved this project because it involved cutting and handwriting practice as well as practice following directions.  However, despite the guided nature of this project, a lot of the kids personal touches came through on the final product.  I found these adorable collages on Mrs. Solano's Kindergarten Blog.

The final activity for our Stone Soup week was our actual stone soup.  I put a sign up sheet on line asking for the stone soup ingredients.  I supplied a special stone from our lake house.  Next year I will collect the vegetables on Thursday and parboil the vegetables.  The potatoes and carrots were hard to cut with our child safe knifes (they are like pumpkin knifes and required more sawing than cutting).

Many kids originally said they didn't want to try the soup but almost everyone did and they were very pleased with their cooking ability.

The final thing we did was write out the recipe.  It was so cute because the kids wanted me to post the recipe on our school website so their moms could make the soup at home. That print motivation is such an important early literacy skill.

Stone Soup

This week we made stone soup.  Before we made the stone soup we read several versions of the book and acted out the story using a big pot and play vegetables from our kitchen. Unfortunately, my phone was having problems and I lost those photos when I got my new phone (fortunately, I brought my phone into the Apple store just days before the warranty ended...that never happens to me). This is how we made stone soup:

We started by washing our stones very well.

Next we cut up the vegetables that we brought to add to the soup.

While the soup cooked, we went for a walk and found a huge hollow tree trunk that was perfect for making another batch of stone soup.

We came back to our classroom and tried our stone soup.  Initially, several children said they only wanted to smell the stone soup.  Eventually, everyone tried it and decided it was DELICIOUS!