November in our classroom is about being thankful and being a family. Our learning about thankfulness ends with a feast of stone soup. The stone soup books are the perfect read-aloud for the month and allow for great lessons on kindness, sharing, and helping those around us. And with so many different versions of the story, the possibilities are endless! There’s even a new version about people in Italy who make stone soup during the pandemic lockdowns.
Stone Soup Comprehension
We use our Read It Up! Stone Soup resource to retell different versions of the story, compare and contrast different versions of the story, and write about our stone soup.
For the retelling, comparing, and contrasting, we use a large story map like this one. I use pictures of the book covers, and we fill in the details using sticky notes!
Students then choose a story to retell. They complete their story map and orally retell the story to me.
GRAB ALL THE VERSIONS OF STONE SOUP BY CLICKING HERE or CLICK ON THE IMAGES!
We also create our stone soup for a fun and simple art project! The kids have to tell me the ingredients they used and why!
Stone Soup Feast
Our last day before Thanksgiving break has always been a feast. For the last ten years, our feast has been stone soup. After reading the stories, we come together and make our own stone soup. Spoiler alert: it’s vegetable soup. Stone Soup always starts with a stone. We use a stone from the landscaping at our house. I honestly grab a stone and run it through the dishwasher to clean and sanitize it!
We place the stone in the pot and discuss the importance of kindness, friendship, helping our friends and neighbors, and sharing. Then we make the soup, and it cooks all day and fills the classroom with a delicious aroma!
Pro tip: use pre-made vegetable soup!
While the soup cooks, we also make our own butter! We use heavy whipping cream and salt. Ya’ll, I pour some cream into individual portion cups, add a pinch of salt, and the kids shake. And it makes really good butter!
And finally, we have our feast!
The stone goes to a child who has exhibited hard work or kindness or overcomes obstacles. The soup chooses the child to receive the soup. And by the soup, I mean I make sure the child who deserves the stone gets the stone. We then talk about why that child got the stone, and everyone celebrates!
For more November read-alouds and Thanksgiving ideas, visit these posts:
