The Blue Hill Meadows

Welcome to the third year of Learning through Literature’s Homeschool Co-op Curriculum. If this is your first time here, this book: The Blue Hill Meadows, is the last of 13 books that will be covered as part of our homeschool co-op year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States. The class has been created for 2nd – 4th graders and is the culmination of three years of Learning through Literature together. If this is your first time looking around, please check out our first year, Learning the ABC’s through Literature. Or the second year, Learning Snippets of History through Literature for Homeschool Co-op.

Each year was inspired by Jane Lambert’s Five in a Row Curriculum and uses many of the same books, but with lessons, discussion questions, and printables reworked to be more useful for a homeschool co-op.

For this third year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States, we will take TWO classes to cover each book. If you are using this for a co-op, you will find “Class One” and further down the page, “Class Two”.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Blue Hill Meadows

Cynthia Rylant

Wow. It’s the end of the year. If you’ve followed along with the Learning the USA through Literature Curriculum this year, congratulations – you’ve made it! And thanks for joining us! Because this curriculum is still so new (the 3-year version project was finished in April 2020), any feedback you have would be wonderful. I will continue to tweak worksheets, lesson plans, and possibly update/rework the lessons as I go back and teach them again in future years. But if you have used this with your co-op and have any feedback or questions, I would love to hear from you. Find me on Instagram, or email me here.

The story for today is not part of the Five in a Row Volume 4 Curriculum, as most of the others are. We chose this story because we wanted a book that featured our home state of Virginia. The Blue Hill Meadows is a longer read (taking almost the entire class). It starts in summer and goes through the seasons in Virginia, ending in spring, and including several good springtime themes, like planting and Mother’s Day. For us, this was a good gentle book to end the year on, and a good book to review the past year together.

If I didn’t choose this book, I may have also chosen Who Owns the Sun by Stacy Chbosky. This is another Five in a Row (not Volume 4, but still FIAR) book that I have never taught in a co-op, but almost certainly takes place in the Southeast, and is rich with history and many themes that would be great for classroom discussion.

If you’d like to choose another book for these last two weeks that takes place in your home state – this may be a good time to do something different.

Class 1

Things I Need:

The Blue Hill Meadows Book
Map of the USA, especially showing the Southeast States
Learning the USA through Lit Journal – The Blue Hill Meadows Add In Pages 1st Class
Scissors, Gluesticks, Pencils
Snacks, maybe some biscuits, cookies, or cherry pie – something to share with the class for them to enjoy while you read. There are many foods mentioned in the story.
Extra paper, colored pencils, crayons to let the class draw as you read — it is a longer than normal book.
Cameral or Cell Phone to take an end of the year class picture

Homework:

Book Report: Continue working on the assignment from last class
Journal: Label the 50 States (abbreviations okay for those who may be intimidated by writing 50 states. Even if you have non-writers, can they tell you all 50?
Can you sing the song with all 50 capitals? (see recommendations for a couple we like, here)

Before the class: set out the new copywork pages from The Blue Hill Meadows. Have your class helper(s) help the kids punch their new journal pages and add them to their binders.

If you’ve never read The Blue Hill Meadows and would like a preview of the book, you can find one here. This is the first of 5 chapters, each recorded separately on YouTube.

With this class, you may want to go around and try something a little different. While the class is completing the copywork, try to visit each student and find out the book they are using for their book report. Do they know what to do? Have they decided on a book? Have they done anything so far that they want to show you?

Visiting the students one on one can give them an opportunity to ask specific questions and helps you to make sure they understand the assignment and are on their way for next week’s book report presentations.

Review:

Begin by reciting the Southeast States together. Then, try to go through the entire United States, region by region. Can anyone do it on their own?

Homework Review:

Have the class pull out their homework, and go around having each one share something from the last

Did anyone memorize the Bible verses? (Proverbs 13:22, 1 John 4:19)
Was everyone able to figure out the landmarks from the Southeast?
Go around the room and have students read what they wrote about the landmarks.
If you haven’t not checked in with everyone about their book report, do that now. Ask the class to share the book they’re doing and find out if they need more ideas. If anyone would like to share what they will be doing for their extra project, they could — but many may want to keep it a surprise.

Introduce the Story:

Tell the class our book takes place in the Southeast, in the state of Virginia.

Because the story is so long (yes, there are pictures – but it will probably take you the rest of the class to read the book)… you want this to be an enjoyable experience.

Pass out treats, let the class get cozy. If you have doodlers, pass out paper and pencils and let they draw what they imagine the setting of the book to be. or the main character to look like.

the Setting: The town of “Blue Hill, Virginia” is fictitious – but where could it be? We can tell from the illustrations that the Meadows family lives in the mountains. The “Blue Ridge Mountains” is a real location in Virginia that looks similar. But there are many mountainous areas throughout the Western part of the state.

the Seasons: Let the class know this book has four chapters, one for every season of the year. Perhaps they may want to sketch a scene from each season as you read?

Read the Story:

As you read, feel free to pause often to linger / discuss as you go. You could especially make a point at the end of each chapter to do something unique.

This book would also lend itself well to an end of the year party, especially because of the many food options and meals mentioned in the book. One fun idea to try: at the end of each chapter, pause for one minute for the helpers to serve something small that was mentioned in the chapter, while you ask a few discussion questions. The foods mentioned in each chapter are listed below.

Some good topics for discussion in each chapter:

A Much-Loved Dog (treats: doughnuts & milk, ice cream cones)
- Where is the setting of our book?
- Who is our main character?
- Did anyone suspect that Lady was pregnant?
- Has anyone ever raised a puppy? Was it hard? Was it fun? Would you do it again?
- How would you feel if you had to give away your new puppies?
- What season was this?
- Summer is coming up for us too – what do you want to do during your summer break?
October Lake (treats: boiled eggs, toast, orange juice, biscuits, cocoa, grilled cheese, bbq chips, pickles, soda pop, apples and honey, peanut brittle, oatmeal cakes, chocolate milk)
- Has anyone ever gone on a special trip, just them and mom/dad? What was it like? How did it feel?
- Has anyone every had to wake up early in the morning for something?
- Does anyone remember what they ate on their fishing trip? What is your favorite breakfast?
- If you could have a conversation just you and mom/dad, what would you talk about?
Blizzard Party (powdered doughnuts, hot chocolate, corn chips, peanut butter cookies)
- Do you love a big snowstorm?
- Have you ever been left behind? What would you have done?
- Would you have been scared to have to go home with your teacher?
- Why would a Virginia town panic over snow? Would it be different if you lived somewhere else? Like Maine? Why?
- Mr. Theodore has lots of pets. Who in the class has the most unique pet?
- If you’re parents let you get any pet you wanted, what would you bring home?
A Perfect Gift (carrots, radishes, lettuce, flowers)
- Why did Wille feel such an obligation to get a gift for his mother? (his teacher talked about it all the time, sense of duty from teacher)
- What was it that finally helped him know what to get? (he observed his mother)
  - further points could be made here … when we do something because someone tells us to, verses doing something because we’ve seen a need/someones’s heart and we want to
- Why did Ray keep giving his mother the same gift?
- What’s the most fun gift you’ve every given someone?
- What do you think about Willie’s gift? Do you think his mother liked it? Why?

EXTRAS you don’t want to forget….

*If you finish the class discussions, play a few rounds with the states and the buzzer / pointers.

*TAKE A CLASS PICTURE … to put at the end of their journals and send home next week

Homework:

Ask them to fill in the United States map that was added to their journal. This should be a helpful review to prepare them for more of the States Games coming the last week or two of class.

Remind the class that they will be sharing their book reports NEXT WEEK.