Exploring Weighty Matters With Cucumber Soup: An Interdisaciplinary Approach
Published in the Fall 2007 issue of the ACEI Exchange, pp 30 R-U

This Idea-Sparker was provided by Lynn Columba, Associate Professor, Lehigh University.

Children's literature can play a significant role in integrating math and science concepts into real-world applications. One particularly delightful selection is Cucumber Soup (Krudwig, 1998). This book can create a context-making cucumber soup-for weighing and for a real-life need to know how to add fractions. Other math and science skills are called upon to solve the catastrophe upon which the plot revolves. This kind of learning context takes children away from viewing math and science as rules and formulas, and encourages them to explore ideas in a more natural and informal manner that will help them discover connections and interrelationships among content and concepts. Meaningful learning takes place when children experience math and science in ways that relate to their own day-to-day lives. The way children explore concepts in authentic and natural contexts brings many welcome surprises (Columba, Kim, & Moe, 2005).

The universal appeal of children's literature makes it a powerful tool for teachers at the elementary level. Involving children with books in a variety of ways serves to connect concepts to reality and make learning a personal experience. Knowing your students and matching the appropriate selections create opportunities to extend concepts into the child's world. This is one of the most exciting and motivating ways to engage students in actively doing math and science. Cucumber Soup (Krudwig, 1998) creates this kind of climate for investigating and exploring measurement and number concepts.

Often, the first experiences for a young child in learning the concept of weight involves actually holding objects in each hand and becoming aware of the relative downward pull on each arm. During these initial interactions, you can introduce the language of "heavier" and "weighs more." Next, the children can make a decision about which of the two objects is heavier. This personal experience can be transferred to a pan balance. When the objects are placed on the pans, the side that goes down is heavier (Van de Walle, 2006).

Standards and Expectations
Standards published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2000) for measurement specifically recognize the attributes of weight and align with the investigation. On the Weighty Search, students will find objects in the classroom (such as an eraser), then locate an object that feels lighter and an object that feels heavier. On the Weighty Cucumbers activity page (Appendix A), the students draw enough cucumbers to show the heavier side. In Cucumber Data Collection, the students measure a cucumber with multiple copies of units of the same size, such as paper clips laid end to end. Also, the students can create snap cube chains to represent the number of garden critters, an activity that coincides with the Numbers and Operations Standard (NCTM, 2000). The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996), specifically the Life Science Standard—characteristics of organisms, are addressed by describing the different garden critters and their habitats. Additional factual information is included in the text of Cucumber Soup about each garden critter, without taking away from the story. Standards for English Language Arts (The National Council of Teachers of English & the International Reading Association, 1996) are addressed through a shared writing experience, as students explain how teamwork helped to solve the ants' problem or by writing a different ending to the story. Teachers can adapt the activities to better match their students' strengths and the local curriculum.

Materials
6 cucumbers
Primary balance with pans
Cubes (snap or multilink), paper clips, tiles, counters, toothpicks, etc.
Ingredients to make cucumber soup
Data Collection/Information Sheets
(contact aceied@aol.com for samples)
About the Book
Cucumber Soup, written by Vickie Leigh Krudwig and illustrated by Craig McFarland Brown (1998), is an enchanting story about 10 ants that go out looking for food one morning. Upon returning, they find a cucumber on top of their ant hill. Other whimsical garden critters come to the rescue-nine noisy mosquitoes, eight orange ladybugs, and so on, down to one tiny flea. The garden critters successfully dislodge the cucumber by using teamwork. They celebrate their triumph with a feast of cucumber soup. At the end of the book is a recipe for cucumber soup, which engages children in measuring and fraction concepts. The dazzling illustrations are from an ant's perspective, so the cucumber appears to be enormous throughout the story. Factual information about the garden critters is included off to the side, helping to provide the basis for math and science integration. To Introduce the Book

1. Before reading the book, ask the students what a cucumber is and ask them to describe it. To which of the five food groups does the cucumber belong?
2. Ask the students if they like to eat cucumbers. What is their favorite way to eat them? How are they prepared for dinner at their houses?
3. Ask the students what they think the book is going to be about. Have the students share their predictions.
4. Why do they think the black ants are gathered around the cucumber?
5. Encourage the students to listen closely for the problem that the black ants encounter and have them explain how they solve the problem.
6. Read the book and share the illustrations so that all the children can see them.

Sharing the Book

1. After reading the book aloud, discuss how the black ants solved the problem. What happened when the tiny flea pushed?
2. Ask the students what the word "teamwork" means. Could other animals in the garden have helped them solve the problem?
3. Ask the children if a pattern exists for the number of critters on each page. As the story is being read a second time, have the students represent each group of garden critters with a chain of cubes-10 black ants, 9 mosquitoes, 8 ladybugs, 7 spiders, 6 bumblebees, 5 butterflies, 4 fireflies, 3 grasshoppers, 2 green praying mantises, and 1 flea. Then ask again for students to state the pattern that they observe when they look at their cubes.

Promoting Concepts

1. Introduce the concepts of heavy, light, and weight. Have a student hold in one hand a pencil and in the other a large book in order to compare the weights. Have the student state which is lighter (easier to lift) and which is heavier (harder to lift).
2. Write the words heavy and light on construction paper and have the students gather objects in the classroom that are heavy or light.
3. Have students hold a paper clip in one hand and a cucumber in the other and state which is lighter or heavier. Repeat this activity with other objects in the classroom, such as an eraser, a ruler, or a pencil box, and ask the students to state if those objects are lighter or heavier than a cucumber. This experience will communicate to a child what heavy means. We weigh objects to determine how heavy they are; this is called their weight.
4. The next step is to transfer this experience to a basic type of balance scale so that students can make comparisons. Repeat the above comparisons with a balance scale. Have the children first determine which object is heavier, using their hands. Next, have the children place the objects on the balance; the pan that goes down the farthest is heavier.

Assessment

1. Performance: Have students identify objects in the room that are lighter than and heavier than a cucumber by holding the object in one hand and a cucumber in the other.
2. Performance: Have students create chains of cubes (snap or multilink) to represent the number of each of the garden critters.
3. Performance: Have students illustrate and sequence the steps in preparing cucumber soup.

Other Concepts
Other objectives to develop using Cucumber Soup include planning a family picnic and selecting food items from all the food groups on the food pyramid. Engage the students in a discussion about servings and healthy snacks and shopping for food.

The exploration can be continued with a connection to technology using an interactive applet. At www.nctm.org (E-example 4.3.2: Learning Geometry and Measurement, http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap4/4.3/index.htm), students can hide a ladybug underneath a leaf or create a ladybug maze or draw rectangles by giving commands to the ladybug. Students use their knowledge of number, measurement, and geometry to solve these problems. Also, the data gathered to represent the number of each kind of garden critter can be illustrated in a bar graph.

During language arts time, have the students share a time when they solved a problem by using teamwork. What was the problem? Who helped to solve the problem? How did teamwork help to solve the problem? The students also can create their own recipe for cucumber soup.

Alternative Book Selections
Brown, M. (1997). Stone soup. New York: Aladdin.
Cole, H. (1997). Jack's garden. New York: Harper Trophy.
Crummel, S. S., & Stevens, J. (1999). Cock-a-doodle-doo. New York: Harcourt Children's Books.
Davis, A. (1998). The enormous potato (D. Petricic, Illus.). Toronto, ON: Kids Can Press.
Elhert, L. (1990). Growing vegetable soup. New York: Voyager.
Elhert, L. (1992). Planting a rainbow. New York: Voyager.
Hobermann, M. A. (2000). Seven silly eaters (M. Frazee, Illus.). New York: Voyager.
Jonas, A. (1997). Splash! Harper Trophy.
Kirk, D. (1997). Miss Spider's tea party. New York: Scholastic.
Leedy, L. (1994). The edible pyramid: Good eating every day. New York: Holiday House.
Parkes, B., & Smith, J. (1997). The enormous watermelon. New York: Mimosa.
Parkinson, K. (1986). The enormous turnip. New York: Albert Whitman.
Peck, J. (1998). The giant carrot (B. Root, Illus.). New York: Dial Books.
Stihler, C. B. (2003). The giant cabbage: An Alaska folktale (J. Trammell, Illus.). New York: Sasquatch Books.
Vagin, V. V. (1998). The enormous carrot. New York: Scholastic.

Web Sites
Illuminations: Magnificent Measurement
Learning Geometry and Measurement Concepts by Creating Paths and Navigating Mazes: Hiding Ladybug
Count On
From Reluctant Reader to an Award-winning Children's Author and Illustrator, Reading Made all the Difference!
Using Recipes to Reinforce Fractions
The Literature Connection: Overview of the Lesson
Orange County Public Schools
Kidfood.org/
Nutrition for Kids

References
Columba, L., Kim, C. Y., & Moe, A. J. (2005). The power of picture books in teaching math & science: PreK-8. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway.

National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association. (1996). Standards for the English language arts. Urbana, IL, & Newark, DE: Authors.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.

National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Van de Walle, J. A. (2006). Elementary school mathematics: Teaching developmentally (5th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Children's Literature
Krudwig, V. L. (1998). Cucumber soup (C. M. Brown, Illus.). Golden, CO: Fulcrum.