/**/ The Purposeful Wife: Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert {1987}

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert {1987}


Since we featured Chicka Chicka Boom Boom earlier this week, it only seems natural to segue right into the book's illustrator, Lois Ehlert, who has written quite a large body of work in children's literature herself. Growing Vegetable Soup is one of my favorites, since it teaches kids where food comes from, from start to finish, and shows all of the work and steps involved.

Plot. A father and child plant a vegetable garden, in order to "grow" vegetable soup. You don't see any characters, just their hands at work, as well as the tools, sprouts, full grown veggies, and the end result pot of soup. The colors are very bright and fun.

Author. Lois Ehlert is a Wisconsin native and octogenarian. Her unique medium of illustrating is collage- all of her books originally are composed of hand cut {or collected} and glued pieces.

Educational Opportunities. Read this book to your child in the spring, and plant your own garden together. Since we are apartment dwellers without a proper yard for gardening, I've dabbled in container gardening from time to time... but not since having kids. This spring I fully intend to start a big ole container garden with S and W! I know they will love it. Then periodically, as we see progress in the plants' growth, we can reread this book and talk about it.

This book also opens the door for a culinary education. Cook with your kiddos! The author shares her vegetable soup recipe on the last page of the book- make it together. Tell them the names of all the vegetables you pass by in the supermarket. Let them watch you chop veggies, and allow them to dump clean cut veggies into your cooking pot. Taste test the variety of the vegetables named in the book together.

Activities.


Be sure to also check out... If you'd like more material on gardening and/or vegetables, Lois Ehlert also wrote Eating the Alphabet and Planting a Rainbow. Since it's Autumn, you should get ahold of her book Leaf Man for a fun seasonal read with the babes. I also loved the book Scraps- a colorful collection of Ms. Ehlert's photographs and art supplies, with an explanation of how she does her work, and her background story. Very interesting for a mom, with colorful pictures to keep kids entertained ;).


Looking for more great books to read with your preschooler? Check out the rest of this 31 Days series here!

Some of the links above are affiliate links- which means that if you make a purchase through them, I receive a small profit at no extra charge to you. But you should know that I am an avid believer in reading for free through both local and church libraries ;). Thanks for supporting The Purposeful Wife!

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