Blueberries for Sal {Before Five in a Row}
At the beginning of July, we started Blueberries for Sal.
This has long been a favorite book at our house, but our original copy had completely worn out, and our youngest didn’t remember ever reading it before, so it was a new story to him.
We loved sharing this story together! He loved Little Sal, he loved Little Bear, and the whole book just made us both smile! 🙂
One of the reasons I chose to do this book when I did, was because the blueberries were in season here! We enjoyed eating lots of blueberries. We also had wild blackberries that were ripe, and the children had a great time going out to the woods behind our house and picking them.
I loved using the free printables at Homeschool Creations for this book. We also used the free Fold ‘n Learn printables from Five in a Row.
Just like in My Blue Boat, we again focused on the letter B and also the color blue:
I also typed out the narration my little one gave me (voluntarily!), and we then made blueberries on the page using a pom pom dipped in paint (another of Michelle’s wonderful ideas!).
Since we were reading a book about blueberries and making jam, I decided we simply had to include jam-making in our learning experience.
But jam-making for me is something I have to concentrate on, and I wanted this to just be fun for my little one. So, I decided to make freezer jam.
We also used frozen blueberries, as we preferred to eat the organic blueberries raw, since they were so incredibly delicious and healthy!
First we warmed up the blueberries a bit (since they were still partially frozen), and then I let him mash them up with a potato masher. He really loved that!
I mostly followed the recipe on the Pomona’s Universal Pectin box for freezer jam, but I added a few of my own touches to it. Below is the recipe I used.
Honey Cinnamon Blueberry Freezer Jam
Ingredients:
- 4 cups mashed blueberries
- 1/4 cup lemon juice, optional
- 1/2 – 1 cup honey (I think we used closer to 1 cup)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 cup water
- 3 teaspoons Pomona’s pectin powder
- 4 – 12 teaspoons calcium water (comes in the pectin box)
Directions:
- Make calcium water (follow instructions on the package insert) and store in refrigerator.
- Wash and rinse containers (I used wide-mouth glass jars).
- Put blueberries, lemon juice, cinnamon, and honey in a large bowl and stir well.
- Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil and put in blender (I used my Vitamix) or food processor. Add pectin powder to water and blend 1-2 minutes (about 20-30 seconds in the Vitamix!) until all the powder is dissolved.
- Add the hot pectin/water mixture to fruit. Stir until well mixed.
- Add 4 teaspoons of the calcium water and stir until it gels. If it doesn’t gel right away (mine did), continue adding 1 teaspoon calcium water and stirring well until it gels.
- Fill containers to within 1/2″ of top (since I used glass jars, I left about 1″ of headspace for expansion). Put on lids and store in refrigerator or freezer, for longer storage. When you remove a frozen one from the freezer, just keep it in the fridge until it thaws, and then it’s ready to use. It lasts at least a week in the fridge.
We left one out to eat immediately with butter on our sprouted whole grain bread, and we froze the other one for later. Yum!
You can find more Before Five in a Row posts here:
Planning for Before Five in a Row
Resource Links:
Delightful Learning
Homeschool Creations
Five in a Row
Linking to: BFIAR Link-Up, A Wise Woman, Raising Arrows, Raising Homemakers, Tot School Gathering Place
Where did you get the "B" printables? Thanks!!
I think those printables came from the free fold 'n learn packets at Five in a Row (link to FIAR in the post–you have to subscribe to their blog to get the Fold 'n Learn materials).
LOVE the blueberry themes!
Thanks for stopping by, Kaysha!
Love, love, love book-based units. Thanks for sharing what you all did with this BFIAR book!
Thank you, Caroline!
Hello,
I love how organize you are!! I have a question?? Do you know if the original print is better than the new print for five in a row. Before five in a row and Volume 1.
Thank you!
Thank you! I really don’t know how the original compares to the new…I purchased a used copy, and it worked fine for us.
Sweet! I remember reading that book to my losers ones when they were younger. We borrowed not from the library. 🙂 glad to hear that you don't have to do them in order. This one or the blue boat one may be our first pick! 🙂
We are busy with VBS this week plus the garden work so we aren't starting until Sept. but we have lots of blueberries in the freezer.
Blessings Joy!!!!
Sounds like you've been busy, Tanya! We've got a busy couple of weeks coming up, too. Have fun!
♥Joy
It seems that you didn't go through these books in order and I love that! For reason I had in my head that I had to go through the books in the order they are listed in the BFIAR book. You can tell I'm a newbie at all this homeschooling stuff! 🙂
My 3 year old and I went blueberry picking toward the end of June and this book would've been perfect in the middle of all that! I'm kicking myself right now that I didn't have this book going when we went picking. Oh well, you live and your learn, right?!
I have so many blueberries in our freezer we could make jam once we read this book. And we have 4 blueberry bushes outside that we're growing in our own yard so we can talk about them too.
Thanks for another great post on your BFIAR learning. I'm loving it, obviously! 🙂
Yes, I'm not doing them in order! I picked out the ones that seemed to go more with a particular season, and I plan to do them that way. I like to keep things seasonal. 🙂 You'll still have next summer to do the blueberry thing with your little one! Or, since you do have your own bushes and some in the freezer, that will work out great, too!
Thanks so much for your feedback, Ginny! I still have another BFIAR post that I hope to put up soon, and then I'll be caught up to where we are now. Right now we're doing "Kittens for Keeps," which is another great one for summer.
Well I like your order better! I never even thought to do things seasonly. That makes the most sense because you can use nature in the study, like you did with the blueberries.
Keep on posting!!! 🙂