Blueberry season is the perfect time to play out this book with the kids!
Bible:
Our bible verse for memorization for this book was Ruth 1:16, "But Ruth replied, 'don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God."'
Ice Cream Date: We started our week with a date to "Blueberry frog," a frozen yogurt shop. Ellie got Blueberry and Blueberry pomegranate ice cream topped with blueberries and other sweet treats! Then we went to the park to see the ducks!
**Of course we went blueberry picking! It's blueberry season! We actually have our own small blueberry orchard in our garden of 5 bushes. We also have a blackberry and raspberry bush. We have been picking our berries daily sitting in the grass eating them and also baking with them. We went to a lovely local berry orchard...we will actually visit a few to support local farms as well as to stock up for the winter just like Little Sal's mother!
Kitchen Fun:
We made Blueberry Pancakes, Blueberry Muffins, and Blueberry Jam. We like to bake and cook healthfully around here so we made each recipe healthy. Here are links to our recipes:
Blueberry Muffins
Blueberry Pancakes
Blueberry Jam
Art:
We got pretty messy for our art project! We took blackberries and blueberries (I wanted raspberries and forgot to purchase!) and Ellie laid them out on her thick art paper and I told her just to go at them with her wooden crab mallet and rolling pin. I even encouraged her to smack them and squish them with her hands. we observed the colors of the juices, how some shades of purple were more red and others darker. She loved the patterns the smashing made and loved being squirted by the juice! We shook off what we could of the fruit once we finished, then laid them in the sun to dry. This was fun and a very cool outcome. It was like a food fight on paper!
For a more simple but fun art project, Ellie painted her hands (branches) and placed them on her paper. Then she dipped her fingers in blue and purple paint to dab "blueberries" on to the branches. Her dab got a little wild and I love it!
Blueberry Hunt:
I was able to find some free printables for 30 blueberries to cut out. I stashed them around the house while Ellie played wither her shapes in the home-school room. Then I brought her a sand bucket and invited her to go on a blueberry hunt around the house with me! Just like an Easter egg hunt. She loved it and analyzed her process and stopped to think. At one point she decided to search cabinets and drawers when she couldn't find blueberries at surface level and I was so excited to see her finding solutions and problem solving while playing this simple game! She also had such confidence in herself that grew every time she found a blueberry. Once all had been found, we dumped them out and counted them for a fun little math aspect. Find the free printables from this fabulous blog
HERE!
Blueberry Bird-feeder:
*Supplies: pipe cleaners, cheerios (we used blueberry flavored!), and blueberries of course! Simply string cheerios on the pipe cleaner followed by blueberries. We did them in patterns to try to subtly add a math aspect as well.
Blueberry Match Game:
We got so lucky and blessed to find a blueberry matching game on the back of our Cheerios box we purchased for the bird feeders! I cut it out and Ellie had SO MUCH fun playing this. She loves puzzles, games, and thinking honestly. She did so well with it too and did a victory dance each time she found a new match. I LOVE seeing confidence grow as a child's mind grows!
Fine Motor / Math:
I had saved a tin can and washed it and removed the label. We got this out of our craft closet along with some puff balls. (I wish they had all been blue as my intention was for them to play a role of blueberry, but I went with what I had!) Ellie used a clothes pin to pinch up puff balls of varying sizes and transfer them to the tin can. As she did so, on er own, she recalled from our book, "Kerplink! Kerplank! Kerplunk!" And she said this as she dropped them in. When she had her fill of this game a few times, we decided to count the puff balls as we put them away. As for the clothes pin, initially it took several tries for Ellie to grasp the ability of squeezing to open the pin and grasp the puff ball. However; when she did get it down, she got really excited and became so proud of herself. Her little hand gaining strength like this will help with future handwriting or handicrafts. We also added a small element of classification as we observed the various sizes in the puff balls as well as their colors. Ellie chose on her own to group them by color. Then, for each color group we lined them up "Large, Medium, Small."
Dancing Blueberry Science:
*Supplies: 1 liter of Sprite and a handful of dried blueberries. Use a glass vase or drinking glass and halfway fill the glass with fresh bubbling Sprite. Drop in the blueberries bit by bit and watch as the bubbles rise them back to the top. The blueberries "dance" as the rise to the top, sink back down, and rise again on the CO2 gas in the bubbles. Explain to your child that the bubbles are a gas known as CO2 that are rising to the top to escape from the liquid. The blueberries catch a ride on the gas. Tell your child that when they exhale a breath, CO2 is the gas their bodies release. Explain the molecular differences in liquids, gases, and solids. For Ellie, I drew a picture. Just a simple rectangle with circles (molecules) inside. For a solid, the circles were touching wall to wall. For a liquid, the molecules were more free but still not much space within the box to move around. And for a gas, the molecules were few and spread far out with much room to spread around. This may go over a very young child's head but it is a good visual and my near 3 year old listened and tried to explain it back to me with interest. The blueberry dance was very exciting to watch. We ended it with giving Ellie a spoon to stir up more gas in the liquid and watch the berries dance more! Then she pretended to make tea.
Observation & Discussion:
This book is unique in that it's set in an older era. It is so nice to snuggle and look at pictures in books with children. Even in black and white the detail is so beautiful. We observed the car, the wood-burning stove, the clock on the wall, the clothing of Sal's mother, the whisk, the thread on the windowsill, and the calendar. When Ellie saw the car she was able to observe and figure that it was some type of vehicle but she wasn't sure entirely because it looked so different from my car. We talked about that for a while. She also found the stove really cool. She really wanted to know what Sal and her mother were doing while in the canning process so we talked about it and then we made our own jam so she could have a more realistic understanding. Pictures allow a child to wonder, ask questions, make up their own thoughts of what may be happening, and observe emotions.
Game:
Since we have been picking fruit, we also got out Ellie's "High-ho-Cherryo" game where we picked cherries and counted. She loves board games and a fruit picking game was perfect to play with this book!
Additional Reading:
* "Bread and Jam for Frances"
* "Blueberry Shoe"
* "Blueberries Grow on a Bush"
* "More Blueberries"
* "Jamberry"
* "Blueberry Pie Elf"
