Growing Vegetable Soup Activities. A garden is a marvel, and children recognise this. Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert has rich text and stunning graphics that will entice you and your student into the delightful world of gardening. Make use of our free Growing Vegetable Soup activities and handouts to supplement your reading of the narrative. This unit is jam-packed with enjoyable learning opportunities.
Growing Vegetable Soup Activities
1. Bible Growing Vegetable Soup Activities
Memory Verse: You may utilise Genesis 1:29 (which talks about seeds and plants) for memory work this week, or you could focus on another scripture about helping others or demonstrating compassion.
2. Literacy Activities
Grow Your Name: Use a pencil to write your child’s name or initials in a tiny patch of the ground using a quickly growing seed such as radish or grass. Fill it with seeds, then lightly cover it with dirt and keep it moist. What a fantastic experience for your child to witness her initial or name grow.
Alphabet Soup: Experiment with letter recognition. Individual letters, such as blocks, magnets, or tiles, as well as a cooking pot and a large stirring spoon, can be used. Allow your youngster to place the letters in the pot, mix, and then scoop one out. Teach or review letter and sound names. Colour recognition can be practised if you use coloured letters.
Drama/Pretend Play: Have your child act out establishing a garden or making vegetable soup after reading this story. Make use of props. Buckets, tools, gloves, seed packages, and even larger seeds like beans or peas make excellent planting props. After the “garden” has developed, you may use pots, mixing spoons, an apron, and plastic vegetables to teach your student how to make vegetable soup!
3. Math
Counting: Growing Vegetable Soup provides numerous opportunities for counting. Count the garden tools at the beginning of the book (3) and the seeds on the next page with your youngster. (Note: there are 10 seeds overall, and five of them are carrot seeds). Count the vegetable labels on the page with the watering bucket (11), and so forth.
4. Science
How do Plants Drink? All plants drink water through their roots. Use a piece of celery or Queen Anne’s Lace (which can be found growing wild along the roadside) or a white carnation from your local florist to demonstrate this. Fill a transparent bottle or jar halfway with water and add a few drops of food colouring. Your plant will begin to change colours from the bottom up within a few hours. Explain that this is because the plant drinks from the bottom roots and pulls it up into the plant.
Bean Sprout Activity: Clear jar, yoghurt container, paper towel, and bean seeds are the materials. Wrap strips of paper towel around the yoghurt container such that the paper touches the sides when placed upside down in the jar. Push the bean seeds between the jar and the paper to keep them from falling. Place the jar in a sunny spot and wet the paper. Maintain the moisture level in the paper. Keep an eye on the beans as they swell, split, and sprout both down (roots) and up (shoots). You can photograph the bean every day for two weeks, beginning when it emerges from the ground. It’s incredible to document this process and then go back and go at your images.
5. Crafts
Garden Apron: Aprons (either for cooking or carrying equipment) and fabric paint Make your own garden apron to wear while planting and caring for your garden. Allow your kid to paint pictures and messages on the apron, or assist her in “painting” her hand with fabric paint before pressing a handprint onto the apron.
Seed Mosaic: Cardstock, glue, and a variety of seeds were used. Allow your child’s creativity to go wild as she produces drawings and artwork from seeds.
