Blueberries for Sal {B4FI♥AR}

~Boaz is 4 years, 8 months~ 

Blueberries for Sal is a sweet, old fashioned story about little Sal and her mother, little bear and her mother, and how they get mixed up on blueberry hill.

I am teaching a little learners class at a local homeschool co-op this quarter. My focus is literature based studies and slated first was Blueberries for Sal. My Tuesday class theme is pretend or imaginary play (not my specialty, but there was a need for a teacher that hour) so I planned to make pretend blueberry muffins. I made Berry Koolaid playdough for the blueberry dough and vanilla scented playdough for the batter (using the same recipe but omitting the Koolaid and adding vanilla and a drop of lemon essential oil). The kids really loved it and had a great time measuring, mixing, and rolling and shaping blueberries for their "muffins." And I made tissue paper chef hats for the kids. I snapped this picture of Bo when he came to show me his muffins. :)


The sound of the blueberries hitting the bottom of the metal pail is an example of onomatopoeia, so I taught my little Bo and his friends how to kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. I used three different sized tin cans to drop the berries in to make the kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk sound - I thought it was a pretty neat discovery! :)

Then we went blueberry picking with homemade tin can pails and blue pony beads in my Friday class.


I saved tin cans from the recycle bin - lids removed with a safety can opener (affiliate) that leaves a smooth edge, drilled two holes for the handle and smoothed the metal with a grinder (at least I think that it what it is called) on the outside, and used a Dremmel tool to smooth the inside where I drilled so little hands can play safe. Then I attached a pipe cleaner handle. 

Then we planted hundreds of pony bead blueberries for the children to find.





I think it was a lot of fun. This was week one of co-op and Bo and I rowed this book at home the next week. At co-op, our theme was apples the 2nd week, so this tied in well with our lessons. (I read The Apple Pie Tree and made felt apple pies for pretend play and I read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World and did an apple taste test in my Friday class).

Health & Nutrition

We used worksheets from Super Teacher Worksheets (link to my review).

Food Groups


Healthy/Not Healthy


Fruits & Veggie Collage




Make a Fruit Salad



Bo counted 141 blueberries:


I started filming in the nineties. He got stuck at 109, but once past 110 he made it to 141 on his own. He sometimes skipped a number and I think it's because he dropped two in the bowl at one time.  Super good job counting Bo!

Jam Fun


One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry... 
Jamberry, Bread and Jam for Francis, Peanut Butter & Jelly (affiliate) - all fun books
What I am... is tired of jam. ~Francis
I kind of was too. I did think I would make freezer jam, but didn't feel like it in the end.

Safety & Bears

Lesson from the manual (p. 29)


In the Path of Great Bear was a really great book about bear safety that I found at our library. 


Bears/Hibernation

Bo drew the bear on a notebook page on hibernation and we read the bear book.





McCloskey, Maine & Then & Now


We read One Morning in Maine (a Sonlight P 3/4 selection) and...

Then and Now In the kitchen (also a Sonlight P 4/5 selection) to compare an old fashioned kitchen to a modern kitchen.



We also read First Thousand Words - Food, The Store,The Kitchen to compare kitchens, and maybe The Zoo for the bear.

More blueberry fun:

Blueberries for Sal with Mali and Elli
Blueberries for Sal Tot School activities {when Bo was 29 months old}

Blueberries for Sal is a Before Five in a Row selection. There are a lot of Fun Things to do with B4FIAR, but the most important thing is to cultivate a love for learning. ♥

The Before FI♥AR Link-Up is currently closed, 
but you are welcome to visit to see what others did with Blueberries for Sal.
Thank you to those who have linked up over the years!

5 comments

  1. What fun! I especially love the tin pails you made, and the blueberry picking activity! Boaz can count very high for a 4 year old!

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  2. This was our very favorite from the BFIAR selections, Michelle, and I love what you did with it! D,8 is now asking if he can re-read it with me so that he can make the play dough you made (a possible downside to a good reader hanging over my shoulder!)

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  3. OMG! I haven't heard or see Bluberries for Sal in thirty years. I loved that book so much as a child.

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  4. Love the little berry picking cans :) Your co-op is blessed to have you teaching!

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    Replies
    1. I think my blog readers appreciate me more! I put more into it than they really wanted - the kids Bo's age (especially the boys) just wanted to play, but they did love the blueberry hunt!

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