Blueberries for Sal is our week 2 book. As part of the Before Five in a Row, this book perfectly coordinates with B Letter of the Week activities.
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, is the sweet story of a Mom and daughter out picking blueberries to can for the wintertime. Along the way, they encounter a Mama Bear and bear cub who are out eating blueberries to store up for the wintertime. When the two young ones get separated from their respective Moms, the real adventure begins. This story is sweet, and gentle and even the encounter of the bears by the humans is told in a friendly and fun way, removing any fear for the littlest of ears listening.
One of the things we did for the week was of course stock up on Organic Blueberries. We took full advantage of the theme this week to make homemade blueberry jelly. Doing so is incredible easy with three simple ingredients: Pectin, Organic Blueberries and Organic Sugar. Like Sal and her mom in the book, we canned our jelly and put three jars in the freezer so we can enjoy the jelly during the winter! Not only did we de-stem them, but we worked on counting how many there were! My daughter can count all the way to 12. So fun!
We brewed our Kombucha this week with Blueberries for the second fermentation. We talked about how strong the color of the blueberries. Within just a couple of hours, they had radically changed the color of our Kombucha.
We made healthy, homemade Blueberry muffins. My kids love helping me cook, and enjoy the work of their labor! 
We loved reading this book all week, and also enjoyed watching it being read on this youtube video. Other fun things we did this week was drop items into buckets to replicate the Kerplunk sound, and tried out various items to see what sounds they made which turned into both hilarity and into a super loud musical experiment, that included marching. Last, we talked about all the animals in the book: bears, crows, and partridges! We are planning a trip to the zoo this week so we can go see the animals in action.
I realize I need to get much better at taking pictures. I missed so many fun photo opportunities. 🙁 We painted the letter B to reinforce the letter for Itty Bitty who is still working on letter recognition. We made a big B and then a little b with all the muffins we baked, and both my kids had a blast doing that. And I’ve promised my kids that we can go pick blueberries when they are back in season. Check out some other fun ideas I found on my Pinterest board here.
If you read this book, or rowed this book with BFIAR, what activities did you do?
