Soup's on!

This lesson integrates children's literature and math. The students will listen to "Stone Soup" by Marcia Brown and bring items from home to make "First Grade Soup." The children will use the items to create a graph and share information about their graphs.

A lesson plan for grade 1 Mathematics

By Vicki Rivenbark

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Related topics

• Learn more about Stone Soup, graphing, mathematics, and sorting.

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Learning outcomes

Students will sort by a given attribute, gather and organize data, graph results of the sorting activity, and answer questions about the graph.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

4 days

Materials/resources

• Pictures of vegetables
• Stone Soup by Ann McGoven
• Stone Soup by Tony Ross
• Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
• Cans of vegetables
• Large crock pot
• Chart paper
• Markers
• Small index cards
• Crayons
• Glue

Technology resources

• Computer
• The Graph Club software
• Printer
• Ink
• Paper

Pre-activities

• Unit study on the four basic food groups.
• Read the book Stone Soup by Ann McGoven and Stone Soup by Tony Ross. List the foods used in the “Stone Soup” books on chart paper.
• Sort the foods by food group and arrange in a graph on chart paper.

Activities

Day 1

1. Read the book Stone Soup by Marcia Brown.
2. Have the children list the foods that were used in the stone soup. Write the foods on large chart paper.
3. Tell the class that they are going to make “First Grade Vegetable Soup” and that everyone will need to bring a can of vegetables to put in the soup. Remind the students that everyone will need to help to make the soup, so it will taste really good like it did in the story. (I always have a few extra cans of tomatoes in case a child does not bring a can of vegetables to class.)

Day 2

1. Have students bring their can of vegetables to the carpet and sit in a semi circle shape, so an open space is on the carpet. Each student should place their can on the carpet in front of them.
2. Have each child identify the name of their can of vegetable and share it with the class.
3. Sort the cans of vegetables by the name of vegetable on the carpet in groups.
4. Ask the students how we could show how many cans of each vegetable that we have. (Lead them to tell you to create a graph.)
5. Children create a real graph on the carpet by placing their can of vegetables by like names. (We look at the labels on the cans.)
6. Discuss your findings. How many different kinds of vegetables, number of each kind of vegetable; greater number of vegetables; lesser number of vegetables; etc.
7. Ask your students how we could share their graph with others. Remind them that we plan to use the cans of vegetables in our “First Grade Vegetable Soup.” Lead your students to create a picture graph on chart paper using pictures of their cans of vegetables.
8. Have each child illustrate a picture of their vegetable on a small index card.
9. Create a picture graph on chart paper using the pictures the children have drawn. Pictures of the vegetables are arranged at the bottom of the graph and numbers are written from bottom to top on the left side of the graph.
10. Discuss results.

Day 3

1. Review the “First Grade Vegetables” picture graph.
2. Have class go to the computer lab and create the “First Grade Soup” picture graph on their computers using “The Graph Club” program. The children create a picture graph using this program. Their graph will use the same format as the class graph.
3. The student created graphs are printed.

Day 4

1. Make “First Grade Vegetable Soup.” (I just put in 2 cans of each vegetable, plenty of canned tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste.) The soup cooks for 2 hours in a crock pot in the classroom, so the students can smell it as it cooks. Each child gets a small bowl of soup. They love it. The best soup ever!
2. Children take their graphs home to share with their families.

Assessment

• Teacher observation
• Student created graphs in the classroom
• Student created graphs in the computer lab

Supplemental information

Comments

This activity is a fun way to end my Healthy Foods unit study. I usually teach this unit in November and tie it to Thanksgiving. The children always love our special soup! We donate any extra cans of vegetables to a food basket our school provides at Thanksgiving.