Stone Soup

"Stone Soup" is a very classic book that I remember having read to me as a child. there isn't much content to understand, and the author uses a lot of repetition in his text, making it easy to follow along.

Stone Soup by Ann McGovern is a story about a young man who is traveling far. He is very hungry and comes across a very nice looking house. He knocks on the door and begs the woman for food. She refuses. He asks her for a stone. She is shocked that he asked her for a stone, so she gives him one. He

Show More

puts the stone in a pot and begins heating it. The woman is impressed and says the stone is cooking fast, the boy agrees and tells her that the stone would cook faster if there were some onions in there. She then said, this soup smells good, and the boy says this soup would smell better with some carrots. And the story continues with the boy tricking the women into brining him more ingredients for his soup. Finally the soup is complete and she says the soup is fit for a king, so she decides to set the table. Both the old lady and the traveling boy eat the soup from a stone together!

This website is a complete lesson plan for stone soup. It tells me how to introduce the book, what to discuss about the book, and what the results are from reading the book.

Show Less

Summary: This is a story of a drifter who stops at a house to get something to eat. The old woman doesn’t want to share any of her food. The drifter tricks the woman into making him soup. He says he can make soup from a stone, but he keeps telling her it would taste better with ingredients she

Show More

has in her garden or around the house. At the end the drifter gets a full belly and takes his stone to fool the next person along his journey.

Reaction: This is a great story of trickery and out smarting someone. It also teaches how a fool and his gold (food) are soon parted.

Activity: This is a book that can be read using “choral reading”. After adding each new ingredient the students can read together the part where it lists everything that has been added to the stew. Students can also be chosen to participate in adding pretend ingredients to a pretend stew.

Show Less

Timeless story of the suggestive boy who was hungry and with a stone, made a filling soup. This version is slightly different than the one I remembered. Elements of repitition encourages memorization and sequence recognition.

Enjoyable folk story book that talks about cooking. Encourages students to create their own soup. The book is very easy for students to follow when talking about different ingredients used to make this stone soup. The boy in the story tricks the old woman into making him some soup.

Summary: A hungry boy who tricks a woman into giving him ingredients to make a delicious soup to eat.
Genre: Folktale
Personal Reflection: I really like the trickery in this story and how people can be lead down a path without even knowing it.
Concept: I think this is a really cute story that kids

Show More

enjoy and it would be fun to have kids make their own 'stone soup' by each bringing in a different ingredient.

Show Less

Whimsical illustrations and text with helpful repetition describe how a young vagabond gets an old lady to feed him by making soup from a stone. Through the boy’s clever ways, the lone ingredient is soon joined by onions, carrots, beef bones, and more. Part of the Easy-to-Read Folktale series.

This is an easy to read and retelling story for younger children. It is written in short, declarative sentences, it is also a retelling that is repetitious and downright tedious to read. There is hardly a plot to this story, sadly I was never able to truly fall in love with this book.

What a fun story! I got borrowed this book from a 1st grade teacher that had put together a catalog of books that were on cassette. It is a great way to hear a folk tale retold. I forgot what a great story Stone Soup is. There is a lot to it and is humorous how they cook the stone soup.

I think that

Show More

this would be a great book to go over different food with students and discussing sequencing of events.

Show Less

Stone Soup is a book about a young man who had been walking for days and comes upon a house where a little old lady lives. The young man was wanting food from the old lady but she did not have any to spare. Then young man than asked for a stone so he could make stone soup. The lady let him have a

Show More

stone and they began to make stone soup together using vegetables out of her garden. The soup turned out fantastic and they ate the yummy soup. At the end of the story the young man takes the soup to make some more tomorrow. I like how the book brings an element of suprise at the end.

Stone Soup is a book I can personally relate to because when I was in the fourth grade my family decided to make our own stone soup. It was delicious, I can remember it to this day.

In my classroom, I would have my students write out what they would want to put into there stone soup. We would also dicuss how the young man made the woman believe he knew what he was doing with the stone.

Show Less

A clever young man tricks an old woman into believing that soup can be made from a stone. As the pot of water boils with the stone in it, he urges her to add more and more ingredients until the soup is a feast "fit for a king." This book would be great for the mid elementary grade levels. For an

Show More

extension activity you could have the students make their own soup and/or skit about the process. It would be ideal to talk about whether or not we could actually eat soup like this and lead into a discussion of why or why not. That will lead up to the discussion about how things are not always as they seem, which is a good lesson for the students to know.

Show Less

Stone soup is a tradition European folk tale and about three monks that enter a village plagued with war, famine, floods and hatred. The villagers do not trust one another and they do not speak to each other. The monks enter the village with a goal to find out what makes people happy. The began to

Show More

make stone soup in the middle of the village and the first person to talk to them and offer help is a small girl who offers her families huge to make more stone soup. A lot more of the villagers noticed what was going on and started to offer there things to the stone soup. Eventually the entire village was there for a feast and everyone was once again friendly with each other. The little girl reminds me of myself, I was a very curious child but I do not think I would have walked up to strangers to talk to them. I feel like the main idea of this story is to show readers that sharing is the best way to get to know each other. It states in the text from a villager "You have shown us that sharing makes us all richer" and this is so very true when all the villagers came together to contribute what they had to the soup they had so much soup to feast on. Eating together made everyone friends, it change the entire vibe of the village all because three monks wanted to make stone soup. Which I also feel is the big idea of the story is that it does not take a lot or a bunch of people to make a big change.

Show Less

Summary:
A visitor came to a town asking for food. Everyone said no, so he made stone soup in the middle of the town. Everyone watched from a distance as he spoke loudly about what he was making and what vegetables would taste good in it. The towns people started bringing the items out to him. When

Show More

he was finished he shared it with everyone. They all enjoyed it so much they decided to share with everyone that came to town.

Personal Reaction:
The book as small and suitable for young children. I love the bright colorful pages that shows colonial times in a brighter way, rather than dark and scary.

Classroom Extensions:
1. This book can be read when teaching about sharing and talk about the rights and wrongs in the book.
2. The class can cook a soup and can discuss how to eat healthy.

Show Less

This book is wonderful to use to teach sequence of events, and problem and solution. The stone in the book has an important l symbol to teach about in the book. This is a wonderful book show the significance of sharing with those less fortunate.

What a great story to be told and retold forever. It is a great story to learn about sharing and treating everyone equal. Grade- 2nd I really enjoy the pictures and sequence of events.

This book talks about a village that didn't want to share the food that they had with the soldiers. So the soldiers show them how to share by making stone soup.

In my opinion, this is a classic book. I have read this book as a child and it is still popular today. The writing is easy to understand. There is a lot of repetition in the book which is beneficial to beginning readers. For example, the good lady kept saying "Soup from a stone. Fancy that." There

Show More

is also repetition when listing all the different ingredients added to the stone soup. The plot is interesting. Any person would wonder how can soup be made from a stone. In the end, the hungry man gets the good lady to go to the garden and retrieve all these ingredients to make the soup. The beginning entices the reader to see how the hungry man makes soup out of a stone. Lastly, the illustrations in the story are fun to look at. They are very memorable. If a student is struggling with a word, the illustrations help represent what next ingredient is being added. The word beef bone might be hard for a student to understand, the illustration shows that she is looking for bones in her dog's house in the garden. The main idea of this story is to help others if you can. In the beginning of the story, the good lady says she cannot help the hungry man, but when she hears he can make soup out of a stone, in the end, she makes soup for him. Giving what you can is this story is supposed to let children know.

Show Less

This Story is about a group of people that live in a small town. They did not have enough food to share, so three soldiers show them how to make stone soup.

Age: 5, 6, 7
Source: Pierce College Library

A fairly straightforward retelling.  Maybe a little long because there's a verse & chorus thing going on.  But the young man is not a soldier, and there are no neighbors.  The best thing about this edition are the creative illustrations by Winslow Pinney Pels.  I will look for more by her.