If you are not familiar with Stone Soup it is a story of some travelers who are very hungry but when they get to the village the people have hidden all of their food. The travelers then deiced to create stone soup and in the end the villagers end up sharing their food for the sake of the soup. I swear the real story is much better! My trials tend to be 2-5 years old's so I just summarize each page for them.
When the story is over I start to talk about how hungry I am and how this story really made me want some stone soup. After we get passed all of the kind kids trying to give me their snacks and I finally convince them that I really just want stone soup we have a new problem to solve.
HOW IN THE WORLD CAN WE MAKE STONE SOUP?!
Before class starts I lay out a few pots and gallons of water but I don't tell anybody what they are for. Now we are dealing with young children here so in order to reach our goal they may need a little prompting. I try the most vague questions first and they normally get it after the first few, but I always have back up questions!
-What do we remember about the story?
-What did the travelers do to make stone soup?
-Where can we find the things that we need?
-Oh man check out that pot! Do we have something to put inside it?
-Are there any stones?
I have yet to get past question two. Now once we have the stones in the pots and the water is making its way there I like to pick up a pine cone and say something like "Oh man! Check out this HUGE potato I found, I think I want to add it to the soup." That's about all the prompting that I need to give, tho sometimes I have to question what other things we can put in the soup because everyone will just find a lot of potatoes!
I like to watch them play around with this activity for a while, if there are a few kids who don't seem that into it I will ask if they want to help me build a fire or talk to them about what they help their parents do in the kitchen, a lot of times it is stirring and that opens up a new line of play for them. As kids start to tire of collecting things to put in the soup I introduce spices.
Spices bring in the sense of smell! Not only that but also a splash of color. The only problem is that they get used up really fast! We cant expect the kids to solve all of our problems for us tho! Ok, just kidding, the first time that I ran out of spices one of the kids just started filling it up with dirt and pretending it was a spice. Ever since then when the kids ask me for more spices I will say something along the lines of "Well I guess we will have to make some more!" Most of the time they go right to the dirt, although some of them I must show threw example.
I have yet to see all of the kids play themselves out with this one, when there is water and dirt around its a never ending line of possibilities. I always give a 10,5, and 3 minute warning so that the kids know how much time they have left to do what they want to do, and I find this makes ending the activity go a lot smoother. Of course if there are children who are just super into it then they can keep playing if they want. So the stone soup is all done now what?
Its time to eat and boy am I hungry. Tinkergarten supply's us with these amazing metal pails that we use all the time! So I start filling up the "bowls" with soup.
We then sit down and "eat" our yummy soup with our wonderful wooden "spoons"!
Want some more ideas or more specifics about how to run this activity at home? Check out Tinkergartens lesson plan: Stone Soup
Until next time!
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