November 19th, 2009

Before school today, Sammy drew a treasure map. This is Sammy explaining how his treasure map works.

Today we made Stone Soup! We first observed our vegetables. We noticed that most of the vegetables, especially the carrots, were really hard (and hard to cut!). We also noticed how bright the vegetables were. We noticed that the tomatoes were round smooth, and the carrots were long, skinny and rough.

We practiced cutting potatoes carefully so we wouldn't cut our fingers.

Some of us brought noodles.

We realized that some vegetables were easier to break than to cut!

It took alot of persistence to chop some of the veggies. We kept at it, even though it was difficult.

Some of us brought cold frozen veggies! We predicted that they would warm up in the boiling soup water.

After we cut up our vegetables, we took turns adding them to our crock pot. We used our big muscles to scoop the heavy veggies and pasta from the bowl to the pot. We also added the stone and milk. As we added our veggies we sang, "Bring what you've got! Put it in the pot! We're making stone soup!"

After rest time, we tasted our Stone Soup. It was so delicious. Everyone gave it a "thumbs up!" Except for Sam, who thought that some of the carrots tasted "like dirt." We decided that the carrots maybe tasted like dirt because they were fresh from the garden, and not actually covered in dirt. Here we are enjoying our soup.

Sam's daddy, Mr. Chris, visited us and tasted our soup today. He loved it and thought we were magnificent chefs!

We are just learning our new blog manager job. Two Writers will start this job full time next week! Today, Naomi and Sam R reflected on our stone soup.

"The carrots changed when we put them in chicken broth. They were hard, then they were squishy. The hardest part of making stone soup was chopping up the carrots. The best part was when we ate it. It tasted yummy. I would want to make stone soup again. We didn't eat the stone." -Naomi

"We shared stone soup today with all of our friends. We loved the soup and we wish everyone could come and have some. Jacob got a bleed. It made me more careful when Jacob cut his finger because I was watching him. It (the soup) was hot. There was enough food for everybody because everyone brought noodles, potatoes and other kinds of stuff. That is why we had enough food. itf people hadn't shared, there would be no soup for anyone." -Sam R.

Our special big buddies came today! We read with them and them explored learning materials. We love our big buddies! They also wrote us special notes from their time at outdoor school.

P.S.
Dear Mr. Mark,
Two boards on the playhouse broke off all the way. Because people were kicking the board. Please, Mr. Mark, can you fix the playhouse? We really miss you and we are sorry that the playhouse broke. We have a plan for keeping the playhouse intact by taping a sign that says, "No going in." We are also sorry that you weren't able to have some soup. We love you.
Love, Sam R.