OBJECTIVE

Students will connect the story of Stone Soup to their own school garden or local farm

Students will take part in the process of farm/garden to fork

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Where does food come from?
Why is sharing important?

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Clean stone to put in soup
• Soup bowls
• Spoons
• Large stock/soup pot
• Stone soup ingredients- use whatever vegetables are available in your garden. Potatoes, carrots and kale work great for winter. Add some noodles or rice and some chicken or vegetable broth
• Stone Soup book by Marcia Brown. There are many different versions of the folktale. Explore multi versions with your class or find your favorite.
• Stone Soup Recipe for students to take home
• Wooden spoon
• Harvest basket
• Cutting boards and knives
• Vegetable cards for scavenger hunt: Veggie Cards 1 and Veggie Card 2

PROCEDURE

Make stone soup prior to the lesson

Introduction:

Students sit in a circle (in the garden or in the classroom), and listen to the story of Stone Soup. As you are reading the story, act out stirring the pot with the big wooden spoon, and placing the stone inside.

When the story is done, ask students some questions:

a. Why did they call it “Stone Soup”?
b. How did the visitor help the village?
c. Why is sharing so important?

Ask the students to name some of the vegetables they heard in the story. As they name vegetables, hand out the cards with the names and pictures of the vegetables.

Activity:

It’s time to go outside and harvest from the garden! After students have harvested, gather together around the soup pot. Each student, one at a time, can introduce their vegetable to the class and place it in the pot.

Ask students to name the next steps to making Stone Soup.
Tell the students that a batch of Stone Soup is ready for them to taste!

What is a recipe? Hand out Stone Soup recipe cards for each student to take home. If time allows, students can decorate the recipe card with the vegetables they saw in the garden

FOLLOW UP & EXTENSIONS

Work together to make your own stone soup- have the children chop the vegetables and put them in a crock pot with vegetable broth. Let it cook all day and have children taste the soup with their families at pick up time. Alternatively you could harvest the veggies, make the soup on the stove or hot plate, read the story and eat the soup if you had a longer class period.