STONE SOUP

As a culmination of our community unit, we read the story Stone Soup.  There are many variations of this story, but I have found one that I prefer that stars a town with animals who are visited by two pigs.  In the beginning of the story, the townspeople are super grumpy and locking their town up from the visitors.  They aren't willing to share.  Then, as the story unfolds, the pigs come up with a plan and show the villagers how to share.  It is amazing to see how the animals faces go from grumpy, mean, and angry to smiling and happy once they learn how to work together and help each other to make stone soup together.  Everyone ends up contributing as part of the community and the story ends with a great feast and party with the villagers and visitors.  Once the children hear the story, they love to help with retelling as the week goes on.  We do book-related activities throughout the week and at the end of the week, we get to work together and help each other make our own stone soup!  

The children made a list of what ingredients they wanted in their stone soup and they went "shopping" for the ingredients!  Preschoolers really are imagination experts!!  They took turns shopping and checking their friends out of the market.

Of course, the highlight of the week was actually preparing the stone soup!  Here, a child is using a butter knife to chop some pears to put into the soup.

The children also chopped some apples.

And some potatoes...

They scraped their chopped fruit and vegetables into the pot and also added some frozen mixed veggies and elbow noodles.

We couldn't forget to stir it all up before putting it onto the stove to simmer!

It was sooo yummy, we all ate bowls and bowls of it!