Growing Vegetable Soup

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Growing Vegetable Soup

By Lois Ehlert, Voyager Books, 1987

 

 

Concepts and Themes To Teach

  • Variety of vegetables: green beans, pea, corn, zucchini squash, carrot, tomato, potato, broccoli, pepper, cabbage, onion
  • Gardening tools: shovel, rake, hoe, garden glove, trowel, watering can, hand grubber, spading fork, pail
  • Soup pot/soup ladle
  • Soil/Peat Moss
  • Sprouts
  • Weed
  • Stake
  • Net
  • Bud/blossom

 

 

Expanded Core Curriculum Activities

 

Compensatory Skills

  • Show the child a variety of whole vegetables: potato, green beans, onion, celery, pepper, carrots, broccoli, etc.  Talk about how the vegetables look, smell, and feel (soft, hard, rough, smooth, round, etc.).

 

  • Cut the vegetables you select for the children to taste. Put each cut vegetable into a separate paper bowl or plate. Use the spoon or fork to place them on napkins for serving to each child.

 

  • Give the child a shopping list, in print and Braille, and go to the store to find vegetables for the soup.

 

  • Concepts to discuss:  why do people dig up potatoes, onions and carrots? Why don't people dig up other vegetables such as tomatoes or peppers?  Talk about what vegetables grow above ground and what grows below ground.

 

  • Concepts to discuss: Why would you wash the vegetables after they come out of the garden? Do you wash vegetables that you buy at the store?

 

  • Digging for Potatoes

Place soil in a large container such as the sand table.  Hide or “plant” potatoes in the soil in small hills or rows.  The child digs up the potatoes using the trowel.

 

  • Root a Vegetable

Place a potato or carrot in a jar, root end down so that one-third is covered by water. A potato can be held upright with toothpicks. These toothpicks can rest on rim of jar. Have the children water as needed. Roots should grow out from the bottom and shoots from the top. Then plant the root in soil for an attractive plant.

 

 

Social Interaction

  • Set up a pretend farm market, with fruits and vegetables.  Have one child be the clerk, and wear an apron, and the others have to be shoppers.  Give the shoppers a list and they need to purchase the items on their list.  After they find their items they can pay the clerk.  Have them separate and put back the foods when they are done and let a different child be the clerk, give them different lists and let them do it again.

 

 

Independent Living Skills

  • Make vegetable soup

You can use the soup recipe on the back cover of Growing Vegetable Soup.

Or you can use frozen or canned vegetables for a quicker version.  Can be made in a crockpot. 

Remember to include vegetables from the story: corn, peas, carrots, green Beans, zucchini, spinach, rutabaga, turnips. 

The child can help by measuring water in a cup, tearing or cutting up vegetables, putting ingredients into a sauce pan, stirring soup.  Make sure that they get a turn to stir the soup before it gets hot.

 

  • Make Salad in a Bag :  Discuss the kinds of vegetables you use for a salad. Discuss why everyone needs to wash hands before beginning.  Chop up vegetables and tear lettuce, put it in a plastic bag, and shake.  Make the salad and eat it!

 

Recreation & Leisure

  • Go to visit a garden, either flower or vegetable.  Talk to the gardener about what work they do in the garden.  Be sure to ask why they enjoy the gardening.

 

 

Career & Vocational Education

  • Farm Market Visit: Visit a local farm market to see what they are like.  Let the kids buy some items to try at like...  watermelon, squash, maybe some tomatoes?

 

  • Examine the tools and containers used in the story.  Tools used in the book: rake, shovel, hoe, trowel, watering can, hand grubber, and spading fork.  Containers used: basket, pail, bucket, and bushel basket.  Discuss how you would use each tool.

 

  • Dress up to be gardeners.  Have gardening gloves, hats, bandannas, coveralls, and tools.  Child-size tools should include watering can, trowel, rake, and spade

 

 

Visual Efficiency Skills

Note: even though the pictures in the story are very brightly colored, there is generally very low contrast with the background.  You may want to create your own book with picture symbols and text only