Stone Soup Activity

Stone Soup is a wonderful story to encourage kids to share with each other.

The video is one version of the story “Stone Soup.” Another tells of a solder who set up a cooking pot outdoors. He added water and a stone to the pot and started a fire beneath the pot. Periodically he would taste the “soup” and exclaim, its not soup yet. In time people who had been hiding inside their homes with not enough to eat started bringing things to put in the pot. In time there was enough food mixed with the water to produce soup.

The individual families didn’t have enough food to eat, but by sharing a large pot of nutritious soup was made for all to enjoy. Each addition to the pot made the soup made the soup more yummy.

Since the story is about food, do a little roll playing and make your own version of “stone-soup.” But instead of soup, you could use “stones” to make a tasty “Stone Mix.”

CAUTION: Make sure no child is allergic to foods being served.

Recipe for Stone Mix

Materials:

dried fruits (raisins, dates, apples, etc), miniature marshmallows, M & M candy, nuts (if no one has an allergy to them)

Large Mixing Bowl

Large Stirring Spoon

Transparent Plastic cups

Napkins

Food Preparation:

If you want each child to contribute to the “Stone Mix,” then prepare a food cup for each child. The food items will be divided between the cups, with only one food item in each cup. Place the cups on a table along with the large mixing bowl.

Mixing Ideas

One child at a time will pick up one of the food cups and pour its contents into the bowl.  As each child pours food into the bowl, you use the mixing spoon to stir the foods together.

Serving Ideas

For ease of serving as well as any problems with giving equal amounts of the Stone Mix Snack, I suggest using small Styrofoam bowls. The mix could be spooned into the bowls and the bowl later collected and used for science experiments. I am working on ecology ideas for using products, such as the Styrofoam bowls.

Please share ideas that you find works best with this type of activity.

Science Application: A mixture is made of different parts that stay separate from each other. The parts do not dissolve or chemically react. For this mixture, all the foods, such as the raisins and the marshmallows, do not blend into one thing, instead each of them can be separated.