Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Monday & Tuesday

I'm putting these two days together because on Monday Maeve was home sick, and Noam slept for most of the morning because of his late trip home from Ottawa on Sunday night. So, the morning was lost school-wise.

Tuesday morning we started off as we usually do with Noam reading while I took Maeve to school. I had to make a soup for the Stone Soup lunch at Maeve's school, and thought that it would be useful for Noam to have more experience cooking. I explained that her school, The Grove Community School, has Stone Soup on Tuesdays because social justice is one of their core values. They have Stone Soup because they want to help provide healthy food for all children at the Grove. Soups are made by parent volunteers, and are free of charge to any child who can't pay, or $2 for those who can. Payment can be made anonymously so there is no stigma to not paying when you get your soup. I wouldn't have thought that at a school such as the Grove, with such strong parent involvement, that some children wouldn't have access to healthy food, but I was surprised to learn while I was on the snack committee that some of the children come to school with nothing but a chocolate bar to eat for snack, and without an adequate lunch. So, Noam and I talked about that, as well as the fact that there are many children in Toronto who rely on school food programs. We read over the fable of
Stone Soup, which can be found in many cultures, including French, Hungarian, Russian, Portuguese, and others. The lesson of the fable being that if we all chip in, everyone can eat. I taught Noam the basics of building a soup, starting with oil, garlic and onions, adding vegetables and grains or pasta, plus some herbs and salt for taste. Noam was surprisingly good at chopping carrots and potaotes, and asked to chop more. He sometimes has difficulty with fine motor skills, losing interest quickly, but he didn't this time, and chopped them up perfectly. We then ate some soup, and I took the rest in for the school lunch.

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