Agricultural Literacy Week 2024
I LOVE Strawberries
Written by Shannon Anderson
Art by Jaclyn Sinquett
Jolie LOVES strawberries - and she’s on an unstoppable (and hilarious) mission to grow her own food from seedling to table in this colorful introduction to the joy of growing the popular perennial.
Through Jolie's comical scrapbook-style journal entries, young readers will learn how she convinces the "old people" (aka her parents) to let her grow her own strawberries. Growing strawberries is a lot of work and responsibility, but Jolie is ready with the help of her faithful rabbit Munchy! Together they find out just how delicious, rewarding, and sometimes complicated it can be to grow your own food.
Creating a garden calendar and notebook, how strawberries grow, what pests to look out for in a garden, why ladybugs are helpful, and how a good gardener takes care of strawberry plants are all explained in this fun and educational story.
Educator Resource Guide
Follow this simple guide to sequence the strawberry lifecycle with your students and learn how to extend their experience with ELA and Next Generation Science Standards connections.
Activity Materials
This year's paired activity will be sequencing the strawberry lifecycle. Each student will receive a guided worksheet and stickers with steps of the strawberry lifecycle. The volunteer will then guide them to think about the seed to fruit sequence and place their stickers accordingly. Students will then have the optional activity extension to journal about how/ where they would grow strawberries or draw their own strawberry patch.
Classroom ALW Videos
Companion Lessons and Resources
You can share these additional resources with the classes your volunteers read to so teachers may prepare their students for Agricultural Literacy Week or extend the learning afterwards in their classrooms.
Lessons
Eating Plants
Grades K-2
Purpose
Students identify the structure and function of six plant parts and classify fruits and vegetables according to which parts of the plants are edible.
Right This Very Minute
Grades 3-5
Purpose
Students read Right This Very Minute—a table-to-farm book about food production and farming—and diagram the path of production for a processed product, study a map to discover where different commodities are grown, and write a thank-you letter to farmers in their local community.
Freshest Fruits
Grades K-2
Grades 3-5
Purpose
Students determine where fruits grow and their nutritional value by completing an activity to observe the size, shape, texture, and seeds of various fruits.
What's Bugging You?
Grades 3-5
Purpose
Students examine how pests affect other living organisms and the environment and identify how pests are managed in agricultural settings.
Pests and Pesticides in Agriculture
Grades 3-5
Purpose
Students identify categories of pests including vertebrates, invertebrates, weeds, or disease and discover how pests affect the growth of crops and how integrated pest management (IPM) is used to control pests.
Books
Spring is for Strawberries
When a farm family brings their spring crops to a city farmers market, the farmer's daughter befriends the daughter of a neighborhood family doing their weekly shopping. Over the course of a year, the girls explore the bounty of each season. Sweet spring strawberries and crisp, fresh greens make way for corn on the cob, peppers, and a rainbow of tomatoes. Fall brings pumpkin patches and the crunch of apples. The friends part at the final winter market, already looking forward to the sweet red strawberries that will unite them again next spring.
The Thing About Bees: A Love Letter
A love poem from a father to his two sons, and a tribute to the bees that pollinate the foods we love to eat. "Sometimes bees can be a bit rude. They fly in your face and prance on your food." And yet...without bees, we might not have strawberries for shortcakes or avocados for tacos! Children are introduced to different kinds of bees, "how not to get stung," and how the things we fear are often things we don't fully understand.
The Bug Girl
Sophia Spencer has loved bugs ever since a butterfly landed on her shoulder—and wouldn't leave!—at a butterfly conservancy when she was only two-and-a-half years old. In preschool and kindergarten, Sophia was thrilled to share what she knew about grasshoppers (her favorite insects), as well as ants and fireflies...but by first grade, not everyone shared her enthusiasm. Some students bullied her, and Sophia stopped talking about bugs altogether. When Sophia's mother wrote to an entomological society looking for a bug scientist to be a pen pal for her daughter, she and Sophia were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response—letters, photos, and videos came flooding in. Using the hashtag BugsR4Girls, scientists tweeted hundreds of times to tell Sophia to keep up her interest in bugs—and it worked! Sophia has since appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and NPR, and she continues to share her love of bugs with others.
In the Garden: Who's Been Here
Christina and Jeremy have been sent to the garden to gather vegetables for dinner. But they quickly realize that they are not the first visitors to the garden today. There's a slimy trail on a leaf in the cucumber patch, and some corn kernels have been pecked off the cob. Not only that, someone has been snacking on the lettuce leaves! Christina and Jeremy follow the clues to discover which birds, animals, and insects have been in their garden. Keep your eyes open and join Christina and Jeremy on a scientific journey in their own backyard!
Quizlet
Utilize this resource to explore the vocabulary in this year's book.
