Stone Soup activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Stone Soup Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Marcia Brown's book. Read aloud the picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making inferences

☐ making predictions

☐ analyzing character

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ making connections

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ sharing / taking turns

☐ compassion

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ adjectives

☐ action verbs

☐ pronouns

☐ prepositions

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The folktale Stone Soup by Marcia Brown tells the story of three soldiers on their way home from war. Tired and hungry, the soldiers decide to stop in a village in search of food and a place to sleep. The villagers see the soldiers coming and begin to hide all their food, they too are hungry. After stopping at many houses in search of food, the soldiers stop. They announce to the villagers that they will make Stone Soup. The curious villagers gather around the soldiers to see what they are going to do. As they start making the soup the soldiers begin asking for different ingredients: first salt and pepper, then carrots, and eventually beef. Each time, villagers run back home to get the ingredients they’d hidden. Soon enough, the soldiers made a large, delicious soup. Together, the villagers and soldiers put together a feast and spend the night eating and dancing. Grateful for what the soldiers taught them, the villagers let them stay the night in the best beds in the village. Stone Soup is a great story to teach sharing and kindness.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables