Stone Soup

Muth, J. J. (2003) Stone Soup. New York: Scholastic.

ISBN: 978-0-439-33909-4

Stone Soup is an old tale that has been re-told in many different ways. In the particular book written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth he has created the story to be set out of China. 3 travelers passing through a small village come across villagers who are unwelcoming of their guests. The village has forgotten what it means to be happy and safe, as they have had harsh times in the past. The three travelers are devastated by seeing this village in such a saddened state that they decide to creat stone soup. As they begin to add things to this soup, the village people slowly start taking part and eventually with the help of everyone they create a feast. The story ends with the village coming together as one and enjoying a night filled with delicious food and entertainment, but most importantly smiles.

5. I would use this book for 3-5 year olds because it’s a great way to introduce the concept of teamwork, different cultures and the story itself is very capturing with the illustrations. Stone Soup may seem a little complex when you read it the first time, but it is such a simple concept that it is very easy to slightly change the words for the first reading and still be able to follow the story.

6. The illustrations in this book were a big reason I chose it. Jon J. Muth is an award-winning artist and that was clear as soon as I picked up the book. In Stone Soup he uses watercolors as his medium and through his brushstrokes creates this amazing story. At the beginning his artwork is quite sad and dark, but as the story goes on and the story evolves so do the paintings. By the end of the book the paintings are bright and happy and makes for a great end to this book. I think children would be drawn to pictures like Jon’s because they are realistic and quite different from a lot of other books I have read.

7.  For this book I think I would build knowledge and provocations by placing a large cauldron in the classroom and have a discussion on all the different vegetables the children have eaten in the last few days. I would then read the book and ask them if they knew why there was a cauldron and from there I would go into my activities for the kids to create their own stone soups.

8.  The four ways I would tell this story would be:

a) Act out with a caldron and vegetable props

I would start the story by animating and rehearsing the story in a simple way and re tell using props. I would have different vegetables for my stone soup and a big cauldron we could throw everything in. Bring a mixing spoon to make sure we stir everything in properly. By the end of the story where there is a big feast and everyone is happy I may bring in some bright colored scarves to reflect the celebrations while eating their soup!

b) Felt story where I am able to purchase at 3Hcraftsworks

I will be purchasing the felt story from craftworks in Kitsilano. With this story I will use my felt board that was made for us in class and I will display the story through voices and felt pieces.

c) Stone story- make figurines with stones and

I would like to create stone people, vegetables and cauldron with stones. I think it’s neat how the book has the word stone in the title so I can show the children how we can bring the stones to life!

d) Popsicle sticks with pictures (puppet show)

Create your own free digital slideshow

With the use of Popsicle sticks and big sheets of painted paper for backdrops, I would like to create a puppet show for the children. Although my painting is nothing like the work of Jon J. Muth’s I will try to create an atmosphere with bright or dark colors depending on the mood. I would also like to make a theatre out of a box where I can hang all my different backdrops for different scenes.

9. One of the possible activities I could do after reading this book could be a song. I found this on the Internet and I think it would be fun to sing this as we make our own pretend version of the soup. For each of the vegetables we come up with to put into our soup we can sing this!

“Chop, chop, choppity chop,

Cut off the bottoms, then cut off the tops,

Scoop up the rest, and put in the pot,

Stir it, stir it, stir it like this (circular motion to the right )

Stir it, stir it, stir it like that (circular motion to the left)

Can't wait to taste, what’s in the pot!”

Another activity would be to ask the children to bring in a food flyer from the mail (or have some at the center) and ask them to cut out their favorite foods from the flyer. Once they have a few I would have papers with cauldrons already drawn on the paper and ask the kids to create their own stone soup. After this art project is done I would have the children bring their soup to circle time and we could discuss all the different ingredients we put in our soups!

The last activity I came up with would to go outside on a nature walk and give the students a task to find the perfect stone for the class soup. We could pretend that we are the travelers passing through the village. While out on the walk, once everyone has his or her stone we could then create with nature our stone soup!