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Magic Soup

Teach your child how to have a little fun in the kitchen with this simple, low-prep magic soup recipe. Making magic soup is perfect for the little one who continually follows you around the kitchen!

Magic Soup

Materials

A bowl or cooking pot
A cooking spoon
Small bowls or plates for each ingredient
A pitcher for your liquid
Ladle
Mugs or bowls for the soup
Dried pantry goods such as cereal, dried beans, rice, chip crumbs, marshmallows, and crackers
A liquid base for your soup (water with food coloring works wonders)
Paper towels

Instructions

It’s time to encourage your child to learn to cook! Start with a clean area in your kitchen. Set out your ingredient bowls and fill them ¾ of the way with your dried pantry goods. Be sure to give each ingredient a separate bowl. You’ll want to offer your child a variety of food so they can compare the different textures, smells, and colors as they make the “soup.”
Fill your pitcher with your liquid of choice. If you’re using water and food coloring, now’s the time to mix in color. Finish set-up by placing your cooking pot or bowl and spoon on the table. This activity can be mixed in a bowl and served cold or warmed up on the stove in your pot. Let your child decide!
It’s time to bring in the star chef! Encourage your child to identify each ingredient as they place handfuls into the pot or bowl. We recommend you stick with dry ingredients until your child has put at least half of the ingredients into the cooking pot. At this point, you should slowly pour the liquid into your container, encouraging your child to stir the mix together.
Using coffee mugs or small bowls, help your child scoop out servings of their magic soup.

Magic Soup

Why is this a great thing to do?

Offers an opening for imaginative play.

Enhances fine motor skills.

Develops social skills.

Talk About

“What is the first ingredient you want to put in the pot?”

“Do you like getting to play a game with your food?”

“What do you think the soup will taste like with all of these different ingredients?”

“What is your favorite food that we have here?”

“We made too much soup; would you like to share with someone?”

“Do you like it when mommy/daddy shares the kitchen with you?”

Tips & Extensions

As you prepare these bowls of magic soup, talk to your child about the importance of sharing.

If completing the activity with multiple children, let everyone add ingredients, take a turn stirring, and hand out a mug of magic soup.

The chances are that your child will be extremely tempted to taste the magic soup. Therefore, it’s best to stick to ingredients that are technically edible for this project, even if they aren’t tasty. Try a spoonful of “broth” to satisfy your child’s curiosity.

Keep an eye on your child as they work through this activity and keep paper towels on standby. If you have a particularly messy child, stick to using plain water as your liquid for the soup and lay down paper towels or newspapers before you set out all your ingredients.

Make STEM Connections

Help your child develop a more in-depth understanding of the observable changes caused by heating and cooling, some of which are reversible and some of which are irreversible.

Read some classic stories about soup.

Read “Stone Soup” and “Nail Soup.” Ask your child if they think it is physically possible to make soup with only a nail or a stone.

Reversible or irreversible?

Learn about the difference between physical and chemical changes and look into other chemical changes in the kitchen. Make some hypotheses and do some experiments in your kitchen to confirm them!

Make melted crayon shapes.

Use a silicone ice cube tray that makes fun shapes, then sort through your crayon bin and combine all the broken pieces to make multi-colored crayon shapes. Turn the oven light on as you bake the crayons at 230 degrees for 15 minutes and watch with your child as they melt and the colors combine in the heat.

Put things through a freeze test.

Gather a bunch of materials (toys, flowers, craft supplies, etc.) and freeze them with a little water into the slots in an ice cube tray. What is each material like when it is frozen? How does it change? If it changes, does it go back to the way it was once it melts?

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Correlation

2-PS1-1

Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.

2-PS1-2

Analyze data obtained from testing different materials to determine which materials have the properties that are best suited for an intended purpose.

2-PS1-4

Construct an argument with evidence that some changes caused by heating or cooling can be reversed and some cannot.