Blueberries for Sal Unit ~ Preschool Corner

So far I think that Blueberries for Sal has been one of our favorite books that we’ve done together this year. Maybe it’s because we took a fun walk outside and found a stump like the one in the story…or the blueberry playdough…or the ‘blueberry picking’ that we did. Whatever it was, it was a great week together. :)

Everyday we did the following {before we started into our workboxes} ~ read the book Blueberries for Sal together, went over our vocabulary words and talked about the animals in the story using our Animal Classification Cards. Here’s a peek into how our workboxes for the week:

Here are look into our week and the activities that we did {other than the ones listed in the Before Five in a Row manual}…

Math

Adding ~ The blueberry pail addition was fun and we tried a few different things during the week. The first day we used it, we used the paper berries from the Blueberries for Sal printables. The next day we made Blueberry playdough and he had fun rolling the playdough into tiny ‘berries’ to use when adding.

 

Counting ~ We first worked on putting all of the numbers in numerical order and counting up. We also worked on number recognition by saying the word that was on the pail and having him place it on the correct number.

Puzzles ~ Kaleb isn’t super fond of puzzles ~ especially if I pull them all apart the first part of the week. One thing that I do is gradually cut the puzzle apart into smaller and smaller pieces. The first day I cut it into strips following the grid and then cut those pieces in half, etc… I’ve found that this really helps him to not get as overwhelmed with all the pieces and feel he CAN do it!

 

Language

In addition to using the Read! Build! Write! cards for Blueberries for Sal, we also worked on our vocabulary words, beginning letter sounds, and rhyming words.

Story Summary ~ Every time we do a unit, I have Kaleb retell the story in his own words.

Positional Words ~ The mini book of sorts has been great practice for understanding positional words like: behind, under, on top of, up, down, etc….

Fun Stuff

Making Playdough ~ Kaleb had MUCH fun helping make a big ol’ wad of Blueberry Playdough. I love the recipe that we use ~ you can find it here} and found a blue koolaid at the grocery store that worked great for it.

What Sound Does it Make? I found a little tin pail in the dollar section at Target and we used blue beads to fill it up. We compared the sounds that the berries made while we were filling it up to the sounds in the story. As it filled up higher, we talked about how the sounds changed.

Outdoor Fun

Berry Hunting ~ While the kids were inside, I went outside with a bag of blue beads and stuck them on branches for Kaleb to find. We both went ‘berry picking’ together and found all the blue berries that we could and then Kaleb found a ton of other berries on his little expedition. No idea what kind of berries….but he went picking anyway! {thanks to Lightning Bug Literacy for the idea!}

  

After we went berry picking we were wandering around and found a big ol’ stump. Kaleb remembered it in the story, so he climbed up on top of it to see if there were any partridges on the other side of it. :)

That’s a sum-up of our week. Here are a few links for you. I’d love to hear what you all have been up to as well!

More Blueberries for Sal Links

~ Blueberries for Sal printables

~ Read! Build! Write! cards for Blueberries for Sal

~ Blueberries for Sal resources from Homeschool Share

~ Delightful Learning's BFIAR studies

~ Lightning Bug Literacy blueberry ideas

~ Blueberries for Sal read-aloud on You Tube

~ Living Life Intentionally ~ sums up many resources

~ Blueberry Council

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