Sunday, August 5, 2012

Blueberries For Sal {BFIAR}


With one week left until my hubby was on a 3 week vacation, I decided to 'row' one more book with the girls before commencing our totally relaxing, care-free vacation....;)
We jumped into Blueberries for Sal since it's blueberry and raspberry picking time around these parts.
Unfortunately, it rained on the days that we were able to go berry picking so that little adventure has been postponed but we had fun with blueberries nonetheless!




First, we had a berry hunt.
I got the girls to go to their room while I hid 'blueberries' (blue pom poms) all around the living room.
They were delighted to search for the hidden berries!
Once they were all retrieved, I got Tait to fill cups labeled with numbers 1 to 5 correctly.
Piper took it upon herself to take pictures and I was quite pleased with the rare shot of me teaching one of my children!
(Tait was having trouble identifying the number 3 in this picture so I was helping her by having her count my fingers in this pic.)





Next Piper was given the task of taking the pom poms and grouping them in groups of 5.
Then we practiced counting by 5's together.
(The roles were reversed and Tait became the photographer capturing this moment.)




Another day, I introduced the literary device onomatopoeia.
I used the sound made when Sal drops blueberries in her empty tin bucket ("Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk") as an example.
I wasn't so sure Piper would get it but as we worked on the craft she's displaying below we discussed what it meant and I asked if she could think of any other examples.
To my surprise she came up with about ten!
Haha! 
I'm forever underestimating her abilities!

The craft was simple -
They colored the bucket I drew containing the words 'onomatopoeia', 'kerplink', 'kerplank' and 'kerplunk'.
Then they added blueberries by dipping a pom pom in blue paint and make prints with it.




Piper enjoyed the challenge of saying the word 'onomatopoeia' correctly!
We shared a few giggles over her first few attempts but it didn't take long before she was able to say it just right!
Now both girls will say it randomly throughout the day just because!




In the story there is a mama bear and baby bear who are eating berries on the same hill that Sal and her Mama are picking berries.
Mama bear encourages baby bear to eat lots of berries so he will grow big and fat and store up food for the long, cold winter.
We went on to discuss hibernation.
The girls then pretended to be bears.
They went looking for food to eat so they could grow big and fat for the winter.




They discovered blueberry muffins waiting for them!
(They had baked them earlier themselves but I didn't take any pictures since I was directing the process and was on damage control!)




Then they went looking for a warm, cozy cave to sleep in for the winter!
Tait chose a spot in the play tent while Piper buried herself deep in a closet.




Finally, the girls enjoyed a blueberry smoothie while they narrated the story for Daddy!






That wraps up our last 'row' before we start school again on August 27th!
I'm nearly done all my lesson plans for the coming year so I'm hoping that I can maybe make myself relax a bit over the next couple weeks!
(And by relax I mean finishing a few non-homeschool projects I have in mind! Ha!)








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