Soup's On!

Since January is National Soup Month--and since I am one of those people who cannot be happy repeating the same programs over and over and over--I came up with a new storytime for this past week:  Soup's On!  Here's what I did:

Books:
I shared the story "Birthday Soup" from Minarik's Little Bear.  As I read the story, I set out a few simple props.  I had a stuffed bear for Little Bear and a cooking pot, and stuffed animals/puppets for Hen, Duck, and Cat that I placed on chairs as I got to their part in the story.  As everyone is served soup in the story, I tapped each character on the head as they sat in their chairs and lastly put Little Bear in a chair as well.  Then I had a bear puppet (wearing a dress--having a child with American Girl doll clothes is a boon for puppet/storytime accessories!) come in with a laminated paper birthday cake for the story's end.  The kids were quite attentive during this.

I also read Soup for One by Ethan Long and had magnet board props that I placed on the white board as I read the story.  For the props I had a large bowl of tomato soup (a photo found online) and I had traced/drawn each bug character from the story.  As each new character came into the story, I placed that character's magnet piece on the soup bowl.  I also used Terrence the T-Rex puppet and a laminated paper flyswatter to act out the part where a large lizard shows up and shoos away the bugs.  The kids were also quite attentive for this.

I was going to read a third book, Duck Soup by Jackie Urbanovic, but ran out of time.

Music:
We sang one song together, "The Soup Is Bubbling Up," that I found online.  Here are the lyrics I used:


“The Soup Is Bubbling Up” (Tune: Farmer in the Dell)
The soup is bubbling up,
The soup is bubbling up.
Stir it slow, around we go,
The soup is bubbling up.

Now we add some carrots,
Now we add some carrots.
Stir slow, around we go,
Now we add some carrots.

Potatoes, tomatoes, celery, corn, onions, spices

The soup is ready now,
The soup is ready now.
Stir slow, around we go,
The soup is ready now.

Before beginning the song, I had passed out laminated clip art "vegetables" (and salt and pepper shakers for "spices").  As we sang each verse, the kids brought the vegetables from that verse up and put it into my cooking pot.  We all made stirring motions on that phrase of the song.  Before we put in the spices, I pretended to taste the soup and said, "Hmmm.  It needs something--some spices!"  Then we added the spices and finished the song.  At the end, we blew on our "soup" and pretended to slurp it up.

Another thing we did was watched/sang along to a YouTube video of Carole King singing "Chicken Soup with Rice" (see link below). This video included the book's illustrations along with the words in large type and even though it's long and we couldn't get the volume very loud, the kids and adults seemed to enjoy it.  One of my favorite parts of working with young children is their willingness to "go with" something--if I dance and get into it, usually they will, too.  They are not self-conscious at this age and I love that!

Another song we sang and moved to was Lauri Berkner's "I Feel Crazy So I Jump in the Soup."  This is a great one to end with because there is lots of movement and silliness and the song itself is very simple and singable.  At the end when we had all "sat down in our soup," I pretended to taste my "soup" and said, "Mmm, mine's tomato soup.  What's yours?"  My favorite answer was "Mac and cheese!" from the same little girl who had said "Mac and cheese!" when I asked at the program's beginning, "What do we cook in a big pot like this?"  I have a feeling someone went home and had mac and cheese for lunch!

Puppets/Props:
I used a lot of props and a couple of puppets for this storytime, more than I usually do.  I am never sure whether the props/puppets will be a complement to the stories and songs or a distraction but for the most part using them went pretty seamlessly this time.  Besides the props and puppets mentioned above, I also used my Folkmanis Sheepdog stage puppet, Brody, to introduce the topic.  He stirred a spoon around in the big pot and looked excited as we got ready to talk about soup.  I had planned to have him come back at the end of "The Soup Is Bubbling Up" song and pretend to eat it, but I forgot.

Crafts/Activities:
We had one main craft this week.  Kids got a small blue paper plate from the dollar store, a piece of tan copy paper with a circle traced on it, and a spoon traced onto cardstock.  They were to cut out the paper circle for the "broth" and glue it to the plate and color and cut out their spoon and glue it to the plate.  Then I had dry noodles, beans, corn, and small wooden letters that could be glued on as well as foam alphabet stickers and rubber stamp letters and ink pads for adding more letters to their "alphabet soup."  This went pretty well although I had to stop one of the preschoolers from gluing a rubber stamp to his soup bowl--he had apparently never used a rubber stamp before so I had to show him what to do with it.

I also had a station set up for kids to assemble their own "Snowman Soup" baggies.  They were to place a photocopied poem/instructions (see link below), a hot cocoa packet, 5 mini marshmallows, and a candy cane "stirrer" into a ziploc bag so that they could make Snowman Soup (Hot Cocoa) at home.
  

The last station was a snack.  I had made vegetable soup in my Crockpot and brought that in.  I served small amounts of it in foam cups with a spoon for those who wanted to try it.  I also had crackers handy, which were a surprisingly big hit, especially among the non-soup eaters.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many kids were willing to try the soup and how many actually seemed to like it.

All in all, I think it was a pretty successful storytime.  The kids were really engaged most of the time and I think everyone had a good time.

"Chicken Soup with Rice" video (Words by Maurice Sendak, Music by Carole King)
Snowman Soup Labels/Instructions (download is free but you have to create an account)