This was the book we used for our Friendship Feast in late February. The children loved this story and we highly recommend it! It is all about a duck named Max and how his friends help save him from his own soup. Have the children look at this cover and see how much of the story they can tell you. This is a great activity for helping them build their long term memory, remembering story details, characters, setting, story sequencing, events, plot and increasing the general love of reading. It helps if you read the book first so you can help them recall the story and the sequence of events. The following pictures show you how they made their own soup for their Friendship Feast.
No ducks were harmed in the making of this soup!
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| The children cut the potato's with plastic knives after the teachers cut the potato's into smaller pieces. The children were closely supervised. This was a great fine motor activity and helped them build the small muscles in their hands that they will need to grasp writing utensils properly so they can form letters and words. |
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| We also did a science experiment with onions. We cut them on the table and they made us cry! We talked about the gas that was released into the air when we cut open the onion. Then we cut the onion under water (we filled up a dish pan with water to do this) and we did not cry. When you cut an onion under water it diffuses the gas and it does not reach your eyes and your eyes do not get irritated. |
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| We took turn adding ingredients. |
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| Everyone adds a little bit of love to the soup. |
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| We asked what Max would add to his soup so the children would have to refer back to the book and take previous learning (from the book) and apply it to current learning (making the soup). This is how long term neural pathways are formed in the brain. Children need numerous opportunities to reapply previously gained knowledge to current activities for learning to be meaningful and relevant. |
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| Oh-la-la! The soup! (They say Oh-la-la in the book so we said it too!) |
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| Watch out MAX! Don't eat the duck! |
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| The children set the table for their friends in the afternoon class and added Ms. Beth's ducks to the soup. Thank you Ms. Beth for letting us borrow your little ducks. We thought they were funny. |
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| We had children that normally would not even try a vegetable try the soup. Some loved it, some did not like it, but they all tried it. We think it was because they got to make it. They were invested in the process. The activity was more like an art activity than a cooking activity. The more involved a child can become in an activity like cooking a new food, the more likely they are to try something new. We all had a great time with this book, with this activity and with each other. We hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures and talking with your children about this experience. Feel free to write down their reflections on these pictures and send them to us in an email or in their backpack so we can add it to their portfolio and use their reflections to help us plan further lessons. |
