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Creative Teaching Ideas for

BLUE WILLOW

by Doris Gates (1940)


ON THIS PAGE: LitWits hands-on activity ideas and instructions, teaching topics, learning links, and more. Scroll on!

Printables for purchase

About the story


Newbery Honor winner Blue Willow  is set in the late 1930s in the San Joaquin Valley, California. The Larkins are refugees of the Dust Bowl in Texas, and since 10-year-old Janey Larkin’s father is a migrant worker, she doesn’t have a real home or lasting friends. Her blue willow plate is precious to her as a beautiful symbol of the home she can barely remember. Though her poverty-stricken family is loving, and she makes a true friend in Lupe, it’s Janey’s dream to have a permanent home like the one on the plate. But when her mother gets sick and the medical expenses mean the family can’t pay their rent, a scheming rent-collector threatens their security—and Janey faces the loss of her single treasure. 

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About the author

Ours is the only bio you'll find of librarian and author Doris Gates, a rare treasure (with rare footage).

Hands-on Fun

Making a plan . . .


There are many ideas in this Hands-on Fun section—don't feel you have to do them all! Go with whatever works best for you and your kids. If you want to focus on a particular teaching point, our Takeaway Topics section can help you narrow down the activity options. And you can enhance discussions during any activity with audiovisual aids from Learning Links or story objects from Prop Ideas.

You might find our narrative arc worksheet helpful for sequencing your activities, teaching the important concept of the arc, and helping kids learn how Doris Gates put Blue Willow together.
Narrative arc & other printables

Willow-ware

A LitWits activity from the Exposition

For Janey, the picture on the plate is an almost magical image that represents home, a place she might put down roots and belong. It also contains the faint memory of her mother, and the hope of beauty and comfort. It hasn’t ever been used — it’s a powerful symbol to her, not dinnerware, which is why her sacrifice of it is so very great. So we had our kids make one of their very own, representing home.

We loved the idea that long after reading this book and doing this project, kids would recognize the pattern and be reminded of what matters most in this story (and life): love, home, and family. They’ll have plenty of chances to recognize it, too — there are 200 years’ worth of willow plates out there in the world!  Long after experiencing Blue Willow with us, kids are still sending us photos of plates they’ve come across.

SUPPLIES

Note:  Even though Sharpies are non-toxic, it’s best not to use them on surfaces that will come in contact with food. So, just like Janey’s, these plates are heart-warming reminders of home and hope, not holders for your corn dodgers. For this reason you might want to choose a smaller plate that can be more easily displayed or used for other purposes.

DIRECTIONS

Have your kids think about what represents home to them, and give them some time to plan how they might represent it in a plate pattern. It could be a symbol, a scene, or even a repeated design that has personal meaning.  If they choose to make a Willowesque scene of a home, real or imagined, tell them it might be helpful to answer these questions:

  • How will I get there?  (lane, bridge, heliopad, horse?)
  • What style will it be?  (fancy, simple, period or cultural style?)
  • What plants will be nearby?  (trees, cacti, topiaries, corn?)
  • Where would I go when I want to go outside?  (hammock, swingset, fishing hole, barn, bridge?)

Once they’ve thought it over, you can have them sketch the design on plain paper, or do the creative writing handout first.  Then hand out the blue Sharpies and plates and let them go to town (or… rather, to home)!

While the kids draw, you might want to show them this short video about the legend behind the images on the plate.
PRINTABLES SET

Cotton-Pickin’ Fun

A LitWits activity

The idea of picking three hundred pounds of cotton in a single day is flabbergasting! We’ve picked three hundred pounds of apples in a day, but cotton? Mr. Larkin’s qualifying feat begged for a recreation of the Wasco County Cotton Picking Contest.

When we told the kids about the contest, you’d have thought we had just announced a free ice cream festival. We reminded them of the qualification to enter, and their faces fell. Then we read them our letter “from contest officials” and told them they had all mysteriously qualified! (A typo, perhaps?) Their eyes lit up with the same eager alertness seen in the seventy-six men of Wasco County that autumn day.

This activity gets kids “hands-on” in a scene that highlights the strength, perseverance, and financial needs of Janey’s family. It’s a great opportunity to talk about the hard work of picking cotton by hand, and about modern migrant workers, too.

SUPPLIES

  • 10+ bags of cotton balls from the dollar store
  • brown paper bags – have the kids roll down the tops to keep them open
  • nickels (we gave them to everyone) and packs of gum
  • letter from contest officials to read to the kids (in our printables)
DIRECTIONS

You can set up your cotton field in the classroom, a hallway, a gym, or even outdoors. Just scatter the cotton as far and wide as you can, then summon the kids, line them up and give them all bags. Spread your arms to indicate the vastness of the field and tell them this crop needs a’pickin’! The person with the most cotton balls at the end will be the winner – there’s a nickel at stake, to be spent on gum to share.

Say “ready, set, BANG!” (We think this is pretty authentic — after all, the starter gun sounds “more like the bark of a toy pistol” to Janey).  You won’t believe how excited kids can get about picking up the huge mess you just made.
Contest letter & other printables

Pat the Valley

A LitWits project that spans the story

Remember the baby book, Pat the Bunny? We like to think of this little booklet as Pat the San Joaquin Valley’s Post-Dust Bowl Agricultural Environment.

Blue Willow is full of rich, textural descriptions that introduce unique elements and create a profound sense of place.  We wanted the kids to feel, smell, and see some of those environmental elements from the story. So we took them from the story pages and put them (for real) on our own. Our kids loved getting their hands into the dust storms, willows, river plants, cotton crops, tule fog and adobe mud of Janey’s world!

This project brought the setting to life in very sensory ways, and gave us a great opportunity to discuss each element, as well as history, geography, climate, and land use.
SUPPLIES

  • white glue or glue sticks
  • colored pens  – green and brown for cotton stems, plus an assortment for cover design
  • raffia for fastening booklets together
  • card stock for booklet  – plan on one page light blue per child, and ½ page cream for the cover
  • card stock or pocket folders for background (we used the folders for stashing worksheets and notes)
  • book quotes, in our printables
  • squares of black construction paper 3.75 x 3.75 (backgrounds for alkali and tule fog) – 2 per
  • map image of San Joaquin Valley for background - use  the public domain image below

Textural Elements

  • DUST:  dusty dirt in a bowl (dust bowl, get it?) – a pinch per
  • GREASEWOOD: sprigs of flat-leafed plant suitable for gluing into book as greasewood* – 2-3 per
  • ALKALI: piece of white chalk – 1 per
  • WILLOW leaves or substitute:* 2-3 per
  • COTTON-FOG:  one cotton ball for fields, one for tule fog – 2 per
  • ADOBE MUD: made from dirt, dried grass or straw, and white glue or mod podge –  make up enough in a small bowl for about 1 tablespoon per
 
*Because we live here in California, it was easy for us to find these plants in our own backyards. Of course it’s FINE if you just use something that looks similar!

PREP

Cut the book quotes apart, one set for each child.

Cut the cream booklet covers and blue pages in half lengthwise.

You may want to assemble and hole-punch the booklet covers and pages for the kids, to save time. Just fold four pages inside one cover and punch two holes along the “spine.” Poke a strand or two of raffia through the holes and tie. (Raffia is so much more agricultural than staples).

DIRECTIONS

Distribute the booklets, if you’ve made them ahead of time, or help kids construct their own. As they decorate the cover with the book’s title, ask them to name some environments from the story. What do they remember of those places? Prompt them to use as many adjectives as they can.

Then build the interior of the book one quote at a time, reading, discussing and gluing down them on the left hand pages, and creating textural landscapes to match each quote on the right. You might want to share facts about the Dust Bowl, cotton growing, tule fog, alkali, or adobe brick making.

Glue the map to card stock (or a pocket folder for storing worksheets), and the booklet on top of the map.
Map background & other printables

BookBites: Dodgers at the Diner

A LitWits activity from the Rising Action

BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.”  We choose a food right out of the book, and it has to meet at least one criterion:

  • it’s important to a plot point
  • it has thematic significance
  • it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
 Janey’s experience of ordering lunch at the diner was so days-gone-by we had to bring it back. We passed out old diner menus (“as thrilling as King Arthur and the Bible all rolled into one”), customized to fit this story, and pretended to be gum-chewing waitresses, with pencils behind our ears, ready to take the kids’ orders.

Unfortunately, we were out of everything they ordered, or it had gone sour, or it was loaded with dust.

Except for corn dodgers. Those were important earlier in the book, so we had fun combining them with our “diner ordering” experience. (Corn dodgers are basically a different shape of hush puppies.)


INSPIRATION

With one bound Janey was through the door and wriggling onto a stool before the long counter. A waitress slapped a menu down before her and Janey lost herself in the long list of delectable foods which on this day were being offered. Never had she read anything more interesting than that menu. Once, twice, thrice she went down the list. It was as thrilling as King Arthur and the Bible all rolled into one. She heard Dad give his order, then Mom. Now it was her turn; the waitress was standing impatiently before her, pencil poised, and still Janey couldn’t make up her mind. Should she have roast beef and mashed potatoes, or veal stew with “homemade” noodles?   —Ch 6


While the kids ate we played Woody Guthrie’s “Dusty Old Dust” and other Dust Bowl songs. Against that backdrop, we talked about the scarcity of food in this story, and what it means to be financially secure.
Diner menu & other printables

Printables Previews

The worksheets and printables used for our activities are sold as a complete set.

Common Core State Standards Alignment for the comprehensive use of our teaching ideas and materials is also included for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6. 
DETAILS

The LitWits Kit

Pack up for the field trip!

A LitWits Kit is a bag or box of supplies you pack up and give to each child right before you begin your "field trip" through the story.  You might be doing one-off projects as you read through the book together, or you might do everything in this guide from top to bottom after the book has been read. However you explore this book in LitWitty ways, kids love the anticipation of opening their kit.

If you'd like to build LitWits Kits for your kids, you could easily arrange the items in a bag, basket, or story-relevant container.  Honestly, it's just as much fun to create a kit as it is to open one!

To make it all the more fun, our printables for many books include special "story packaging" for certain activity supplies, including BookBites. Click the button below for a specific list of contents for this book. 
PRINTABLES SET

Takeaway Topics

Why we chose this book for a "field trip"
Blue Willow  came to our attention right after we taught The Circuit, when the plight of farmworkers was still freshly touching our hearts. Blue Willow gives us the Dust Bowl version of their continuing plight, and another poignant story about family love transcending hardship. So we were happy to add Blue Willow to our schedule of experiential workshops. It's a great read and it's packed with great takeaway topics, which we're sharing below.

In our workshops, we did our best to make these teaching points tangible, meaningful, and memorable in the kids' hands. It's amazing how much kids can learn while they're "just" having fun!

Happy teaching!
Becky and Jenny

Takeaway 1

The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl came about at the height of the Great Depression, making a terrible situation far, far worse. The Larkins of Blue Willow are Dust Bowl refugees from Texas who, like so many others, went west to find work and escape the ruined land. We talked about why there was so much dust, and what overfarming and drought had done to the land.

We talked about the Black Sunday dust storm of April 14, 1935, and asked the kids to imagine what it was like to be sealed up in a house as the storm came through. We had them close their eyes while we read (with dramatic inflection) the lyrics of Woody Guthrie‘s song “Dust Storm Disaster.” We also took them through the interactive site for Ken Burns’ documentary, and showed them the famous photographs taken by Dorothea Lange (like that of the migrant mother pictured here) and others. For more resources on this rich (if dry!) subject, see our Learning Links.

Hands-on connections in this guide:  “Pat the Valley” project; “Cotton-pickin’ Fun” activity; suitcase prop; creative writing and history worksheets
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

Takeaway 2

Migrant Workers

Like the Larkins, millions of Dust Bowl refugees left the Great Plains during the Great Depression. Over 200,000 moved to California’s San Joaquin Valley, where there were at least that many there already — most of them Mexicans, by agreement between the two countries. There was not enough work for all the extra workers, and Mexican workers were often discriminated against, and even removed. This helps explain Lupe’s fear of the policeman at the cotton-picking contest. 

Farm workers like the Larkins and Romeros were often taken advantage of, as we see in this story. This gave us a chance to talk about Cesar Chavez, a champion of migrant workers’ rights, who worked hard (and successfully) to get higher wages and safer conditions for farm workers in California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida. For more on this subject, see our Learning Links.

Hands-on connections in this guide: “Cotton-pickin’ Fun” activity; “Pat the Valley” project;  BookBites activity; props that convey migrant life (suitcase, cotton); creative writing handout
PRINTABLES SET

Takeaway 3

Stability

Janey dreams of having a house, a light, clean place with indoor plumbing, but most of all a permanent place. The willow plate means the home she once had, and the home she dreams of having.  As we told the kids, objects can connect us to ideas that are much more important than the objects themselves. The plate is a real thing that helps her “see” both memory and hope.

Other symbols of permanence and stability include the stocked wood pile and the seasonal return of the ducks. We read that scene (in Chapter 7) and defined the words dependable and unfailing. There’s not much that stays the same in Janey’s constantly shifting world, so she treasures signs of continuity.

Hands-on connections in this guide:  “Willow-ware” project; “Acting Out” activity; “Pat the Valley” project; willow plate prop; creative writing handout
PRINTABLES SET
Blue Willow is chock-full of other subjects to explore, too--from climate and weather to agriculture, the Great Depression, Mexican-American history, and more. Scroll down to see our curated Learning Links for more tangential teaching opportunities, and to see how we brought this book and its ideas to life. 

Learning Links

Explore these links to supplement your reading experience, research points of interest, and prompt tangential learning opportunities.

About the Book & Author

The LitWits Author Chat 

Story Supplements

San Joaquin Valley Historical Museum with educator resources
Dorothea Lange photo gallery of migrant workers
The story of the Dust Bowl exodus - PBS
Eyewitness account of the Dust Bowl - PBS
Overview of the Dust Bowl - Wikipedia
About the history of the willow pattern - Willow Collectors
Plants and shrubs native to the San Joaquin Valley
Historical resources: The California Agricultural Workers’ History Center in Watsonville, CA
History of Wasco, CA - Wasco official site
History of Kern County Fair
Video of 1941 cotton-picking contest
Video – how to make adobe bricks
What Caused the Dust Bowl? - How Stuff Works
Video – Woody Guthrie’s “Dusty Old Dust”
Mexican farm workers in 1930s California - Oakland Museum
Farming in the 1930s - Wessels Living History Farm, Nebraska
Video – Children of the Great Depression 

Beyond the Book

PRINTABLES SET

Prop Ideas

When choosing props for our live workshops, we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible. Both kinds of props generate those wide-eyed, “aha!” moments.

Below is an overview of the display we put together for our live workshop, and under that we've given more details. You could easily have your kids contribute items to a table over time, as the book is being read. 

Sometimes we create a printable prop, like our customized diner menu.  
Diner menu & other printables



Greasewoods

Diner menu

diner menu (with Janey’s favorites on it – see BookBites for fun usage)

Diner menu & other printables

Bible

King Arthur

American flag

Bible quote

Cotton bolls & branches

Willow plate

Vintage luggage & fabrics

Nickel in a hanky

Nickel tied up in a handkerchief

Tulle reeds



Willow

LitWitty Shareables





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LitWits teaching ideas and materials for Blue Willow by Doris Gates
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