Visiting soldiers persuaded villagers to share foods from their precious personal supplies to cook a pot of tasty stone soup. To entice the reluctant townsfolk to pitch vegetables into a soup pot, the soldiers began boiling "soup" made from a stone and water. Gradually the townsfolk complied, tossing in a vegetable here and a bit of meat there until the soldiers got what they sought -- a pot of soup. Make soup in class from items shared from the homes of your students. Send a note home with kindergartners one week before you will be making soup in class. Ask each child to bring a zipper baggie, containing 1 cup of washed and chopped vegetables. Scrub a stone with hot and soapy water to use in the soup. Rinse it well, then place the stone in a slow cooker. Let each child pour his vegetables into the pot. Add chicken or vegetable broth to the slow cooker. Cook the soup on the highest setting. In four hours, remove the stone and share the soup.
Provide old magazines so kindergartners can cut pictures of foods, then glue them to construction paper soup pots. Cut cooking pot shapes from 12-by-20-inch sheets of black construction paper. Pass out magazines and scissors. Ask the children to cut pictures of foods from the magazines to represent the items villagers shared to make stone soup. Use glue sticks to attach the pictures to the paper pots.
Make soup bowl art from modeling clay, available where art supplies are sold. Caution children that the bowls will be for display only. Demonstrate how to roll out long strings of clay. Coil the clay strings to form bowl shapes. When the bowls are dry and hard, let each child paint her bowl.
Lead your class in a dramatic retelling of "Stone Soup." Each kindergartner will have a chance to participate in the drama, acting out scenes from the story. Before the activity, place scarves, shawls and hats in a basket for children to wear as villagers. Provide matching, men's-size, button-down shirts for children to wear as the soldiers. Buy an inexpensive set of plastic toy vegetables, available in the toy department of discount stores. Place a cooking pot on a table as the centerpiece of your staging area. Designate children to act out the various characters in the story. Read or retell "Stone Soup" as kindergartners act out the story. Switch roles and read it again so each child has a turn as villager and soldier.
Assemble a collection of stones for kindergartners to explore. Pass the stones among the children so everyone can feel the shape and texture of each one. Let the children observe the stones with magnifying glasses. Encourage children to use descriptive words to explain characteristics of the stones. Write the descriptive words children say on your classroom chalkboard or a large sheet of chart paper. Review the words. Say each word aloud. Ask children to name other things each word can be used to describe. Let children take turns using the descriptive words in sentences.