pumpkin soup

This week, we read one of my favorite stories about friendship, compromise, and forgiveness. Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper is a Fall favorite. Children love the colorful and expressive illustrations as well as the problem - and the solution! Following the read aloud, I asked the questions;

Have you ever had a problem like this with friends? 
When you want to have something go one way and a friend wants to try something different, what do you do?

It provided a rich and meaningful conversation. It was one of those moments when you wish you had another teacher in the classroom to videotape or record! We continued our work with pumpkin soup through our morning message as well as the making of pumpkin soup on Friday morning and the sharing of pumpkin soup for afternoon snack.

This community is willing to try new things, even if they think they won't like it - many of the children stated that they would love to try pumpkin soup. One child said, maybe pumpkin soup will taste like pumpkin pie, I will definitely like it then!

When I first wrote the message, I only had Yes or No. Last year, the children were able to put their sticky note on the middle line of the t chart, meaning Maybe. One child said that with so many friends in our class, this would be hard and suggested I put an additional column for Maybe. I continue to be amazed by this group of children - they recognize that 20 Kindergarteners is a lot and because of this, we might need to do things differently. I also love that the children feel comfortable and trusted to question my work and offer suggestions!

 

 

 

The making of pumpkin soup provided opportunities for children to smell and taste. We talked about measurement and counted in the teens while we stirred. The children noticed how the soup changed - or transformed - with each added ingredient. With the crockpot on high, we smelt the pumpkin soup and cinnamon all afternoon.

For snack, the children helped to hand out napkins, spoons, and spoonfuls of pumpkin seeds. We had pumpkin soup, pumpkin seeds, bread and maple peanut butter for afternoon snack!

KC said it was good, but mostly okay. OC said that it was the BEST.