What better description for the mouth-watering aroma and the soup it emanated from, made by 18 McNeil Canyon Elementary School kindergartners a week before Thanksgiving?
Organized by teacher De Patch, the youngsters rounded out the once-a-year lunchtime menu with baskets of whole wheat rolls they'd made themselves, butter they'd made themselves and pumpkin pie they'd made themselves. The end result accompanied by additional breads, desserts and juices was a delicious meal for the students to share with their parents, siblings, grandparents and friends.
A serious-faced Sam Hambrick, sharing the meal with his parents Matt and Beth, described how he'd washed and peeled vegetables. Classmates Sailey Rhodes and Mariah McGuire told of their efforts making the soup and bread. Taking a bite of buttered roll, Principal Pete Swanson said this was the 10th year he'd enjoyed the event. Vicky Peters, a tutor at McNeil, sliced and served wedges of pumpkin pie. Patch ladled soup into bowls.
How many bowls, Patch couldn't tell.
"It's like the loaves and fishes," she said, laughing, as the soup line spread across the room.
Once all of her students and their guests had eaten, Patch said any soup left over would be shared with school faculty.
"This is a culmination of a unit on our families and the beginning of one on food and where it comes from," Patch said.
In the days before the lunch, each student brought a vegetable that would be added to the soup pot. Some offerings came from family gardens harvested earlier this year. Patch brought extra to make sure there was plenty.
Then came the work of sorting the ingredients by the parts of the plant to be used. Roots, leaves, stalks and so on.
After a thorough washing and careful chopping, all the individual pieces went into the soup pot.
The boys and girls also used the preceding days to bake bread and pies.
"The children write invitations to their families and plan decorations," Patch said.
"All family members are welcome. If no family member can attend due to other obligations, I let that child choose a staff member to be (his or her) guest."
The classroom makes a crowded dining room setting, with adults sitting in child-sized chairs and diners wedged back-to-back.
Outside the classroom, drawings and observations students have made about their families were displayed on the hallway wall.
"My family likes to get together," one student had written.
"My family likes to have people over to eat," Sam wrote.
The harvest-soup lunch gave youngsters and their guests an opportunity to do both: spend time together and enjoying a very special meal.
"It provides wonderful memories of being surrounded by our loves ones," Patch said.
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Story last updated at
8:34 PM on
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Soup's on: McNeil's kindergartners are cooking
By McKibben Jackinsky
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