Chopping up the ingredients
Chopping up the ingredients

“Stone Soup is what you need, when you have some friends to feed. Step right up with what you’ve got, and add it all to the big soup pot.”  (from Some Friends to Feed by, Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs)  The children were so excited to make and eat stone soup.  They brought in so many ingredients that they spent the whole of Tuesday morning washing, peeling, and cutting them up.  There were potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes, squash, green beans, black beans, peas, and broth.  It made so much soup that we were able to make two huge pots.  The first pot we enjoyed sharing together on Wednesday morning, and the second pot of soup was donated to a local family in need.  The older children helped to set up and serve the meal, then everyone sat and shared what they are thankful for before eating.

scrubbing potatoes
scrubbing potatoes
washing carrots
washing carrots
preparing
preparing
Thankful
Thankful
enjoying stone soup
enjoying stone soup
What are you thankful for?
What are you thankful for?

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, the children took some time to decorate a Thankful Tree with tags listing the things they are thankful for.  We discussed that being thankful means being happy about something that you have.  With no prompting or suggestions, the children quickly and easily shared the things they are thankful for, including mom, dad, brothers, sisters, family, beds, clothes, food, school, and myself.

Thankful Tree
Thankful Tree
pin punching
pin punching
writing
writing
painting
painting
alliteration
alliteration
blocks
blocks
lanterns
lanterns

For Monday art the children made lanterns for our Winter Performance.  They each folded a paper in half, cut lines up, connected it into a lantern and chose ribbons for adornment.  The three day students will be making their lanterns next week.

ball
ball
mud
mud

Mud, mud, glorious mud!  With Monday’s warm weather, the children were thrilled to discover mud in the playground.  It was fabulously messy and fun!

more mud
more mud
outside play
outside play
planting a tree
planting a tree