Blueberry Unit Study

So it turns out that if you borrow every book you can with the word "blueberry" in the title, you wind up with a pretty well-rounded blueberry unit study. This is what we've been doing for the past few weeks. Blueberries are in season, and we planned a trip with friends to go blueberry picking. So I hit the library. There were several books that weren't favorites for one reason or another. Here are the ones that stuck:

Blueberries for Sal. A classic. But I guess I either didn't read this one as a kid, or I have a short memory, because I hadn't realized that Sal is a little girl, not a boy! Excellent, since I have a girl. Sal tromps around blueberry picking in overalls, with no girly pretensions like hair bows. In terms of fitting into the unit, this book is literature, with opportunity to discuss science (how people and animals save food/fat for the winter). There's also material there for social studies (family relationships) and art. I know Blueberries for Sal is a Before Five in a Row book. My copy of BFIAR is still packed away in a box somewhere though. (Um, yeah it was over a year ago that we moved). Anyway, you can't "do blueberries" without this book.

Peter in Blueberry Land is your Scandinavian, Waldorf-y fairy tale, and it's delightful. There is so much to talk about on each page. We enjoyed this book purely for the literature, but you could launch into math discussions about relative size, as protagonist Peter is shrunk down to the size of the fairies in the story and sees nature from that perspective. There are also obvious science tie-ins. I didn't go there this time, since I'm doing this unit with a very young child who is not yet 3.

Blueberries Grow on a Bush by Mari Schuh. Ladybug has surprised me before by enjoying nonfiction, and this one was no exception. It's straight science, the life cycle of the blueberry bush, including pollination and winter dormancy. The photographs are simple and beautiful. There's very little text on each page, making this great for a toddler. Bug chose to read it several times. 
 
One Little Blueberry is a simple counting book. I almost disregarded it when I saw what it was, but I'm glad I didn't because my daughter loves it. I am less than charmed by one blueberry, two red ants, three ladybugs, etc...But that doesn't mean Ladybug won't enjoy it. What saves this book from being an ordinary counting book is the little plot: the one blueberry stays in the story for the whole book, as the increasing insects chase it, all hoping to get a snack. Insects are a nice tie-in for this unit, and my Ladybug (led by her Daddy) wound up observing a wide variety of insects on our actual blueberry picking trip, including a very cool blue dragonfly. For unit purposes, check off math. We counted bugs, and Ladybug read me the numbers on each page. 

Blueberry Mouse is just plain cute. It's a rhyming story of a mouse who lives in a blueberry pie, and tells how she eats up her delicious house. For our purposes, I'm counting it as language/poetry because of the rhyming. You could take a social studies angle that talks about the houses we live in, friends, and neighborhoods. I didn't feel compelled to analyze this book, so we just enjoyed reading it. 

To me, something just as important as the unit is how it came about. My daughter is young, and I'm still feeling out our homeschooling style. Yes, I borrowed all the books and decided we could have fun learning about blueberries in a way that enriched our blueberry picking day trip. That's me planning and directing. But I borrowed a ton more books than we actually read, and I took her lead on what to really focus on. One Little Blueberry is a good example: I almost left it at the library, but I saw how Ladybug liked it, so I brought it home. And it really filled out the math part of the unit. The unit was gentle, always fun and always following Ladybug's interests. And that's the child-led part of joyful learning that is so important to me. 

Blueberry picking is my new favorite summer tradition. There are no thorns (raspberries) and no stooping over (strawberries). I highly recommend it!

Sunflowers for Summer

Last month we planted a pot of sunflower seeds, and they have since sprouted into seedlings. Ladybug has her own watering can, and we head out frequently to water them, which she refers to as flowers eating water. From the day I bought the flower seeds, I have been super excited about this project. So I'm relieved that Bug is having fun with it too.

Of course, we've been reading books about sunflowers too. Life As a Sunflower was a big hit last month. Nice photography and simple text, so that it's engaging even though it's nonfiction. Then this weekend I bought To Be Like the Sun, and I'm just in love with it. Ladybug likes it too and requested three consecutive readings today. It seems to be art meets poetry meets science meets spirituality. The text is written as a little girl addressing the sunflower seed that she is planting. She notes the white stripes on the gray seed, then tells the sunflower that although she digs the hole, the seed does the real work, sunflower work, following instructions written on its heart. Lovely.

The story takes us through the seasons, and though the words are few, each page is so rich. The girl-narrator observes that the flower bud is like hands clasped around a treasure. Ladybug and I play a hand game, making tight fists like flower buds that we open up like a blooming flower. As the flower grows, the text names the parts of the plant in a simple poetic rhythm. It encourages artistic and scientific appreciation without being didactic. Ladybug has zeroed in on the word stem when we read this page. When fall comes, leaves swirl and cardinals flock to the bird feeder stocked with sunflower seeds. So Bug talks about how cardinals love to eat sunflower seeds, and she can eat sunflower seeds too. The story ends in winter, with the little girl reflecting on the tiny seed, and how hard it worked to be like the sun. Even the end pages are fun, covered in a design of scattered sunflower seeds. Bug chose to count these, so now we've integrated math into our delightful book. I guess it has everything!