Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Elhert
READ!
Together, a father and child share the joys of planting, watering, and watching seeds grow. And once their harvest of tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and corn is ready, they'll cook it up into the best soup ever!
EXPLORE!
Let’s make an imaginary feast!
Use the grocery add included in your bag to explore different foods and plan an imaginary feast! It can be a silly feast (full or desserts) or one that includes some of your families favorite dishes! Draw your feast or cut out and glue the pictures to your paper plate. And remember that a feast is a BIG meal, so be fire to fill your plate with a main course, side dishes, dessert and things to drink!
For extra fun, write the name of the food next to your child’s drawings!
The Big Five ideas for this book:
Talk: Have you ever visited a garden? If so, talk about what is was like: What did you see there? Now imagine that your family will be planting a garden. What will you grow? Flowers to smell, fruits and vegetables to eat? What kinds?
Play: Play as you read Growing Vegetable Soup by acting out the motions of tending a garden and cooking, such as digging, pulling, pouring, washing, chopping and stirring!
Sing: Hear a song and make the motions of planting a garden here!
Write: Draw a picture of the garden that you and your child described! Be sure to include the seeds and roots underground, like those in the illustrations of Growing Vegetable Soup!
real world connection
Kitchen Helper: The kitchen is a powerful place to learn and explore! Invite your child to help you in the kitchen this week with simple tasks like washing produce, stirring, fetching ingredients, or taking groceries out of bags. Describe what you are doing as you cook and show them the recipe if you are following one!
LEARN MORE!
Informational Books
Growing Vegetable Soup is an informational book. Informational books give us information about our world, explain a process or show us how something is done. They are also powerful examples for children because they show our children that sometimes we read to hear a fun story, and other times we read to gather new information! In this way reading informational books shows our children that reading has a purpose in our lives!
Environmental Print
There is writing all around us, and in our homes, that helps us live our lives! We call this environmental print. Drawing our children’s attention to writing out in the real world can help them understand the role of reading in our daily lives! Check out ideas in the video of how we can play with environmental print!