~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:
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. ~FrancisI 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!
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!
ReplyDeleteThis 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!)
ReplyDeleteOMG! I haven't heard or see Bluberries for Sal in thirty years. I loved that book so much as a child.
ReplyDeleteLove the little berry picking cans :) Your co-op is blessed to have you teaching!
ReplyDeleteI 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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