Dumpling Soup

Guided Questions and Activities for Dumpling Soup

 Designed and Organized by Rebecca Brown

Guiding Question: How do family traditions play an important role in our book? How and why are family traditions important to you?

Guiding Question: Where do we see “mixing” and “blending” illustrated in the book? How does that compare or contrast to our American culture?

Possible activities:

 Describe other kinds of family celebrations or special traditions. Interview several family members to gather anecdotes about past celebrations. Share these orally or in essays.

Host an international lunch, asking students to bring in different ethnic dishes.

Compile a classroom book of international recipes.

Discussion about the concept of "mixing" or "blending" as illustrated in the book. Cite examples from the story: soup ingredients, dumpling ingredients, mixture of foreign words, mixture of races in the family, mixture of ages, mixture of activities. This could be made into a worksheet.

Make a class word book, asking each student to contribute a word representing his/​her ethnic origin.