Yumion Goes All Over The Peach State... Or Onion State

A talking onion, that sounds strange. A talking onion who wears overalls that’s even stranger. A talking, overall wearing, traveling onion is the most creative way to help students travel across Georgia through a book. Yumion is a Vidalia onion from right here in Georgia and he is a part of a series of books where he travels across Georgia doing all sorts of neat things and visiting historical sites.

In this particular book, Yumion Goes to the City, Yumion travels through Georgia visiting all sorts of historical sites. That is what makes this book perfect for social studies! Yumion leaves his home to go and tell the state and the governor all about onions like him. After a long trip in trucks, on trains, and on buses, Yumion ends up at Stone Mountain. He talks to some children, telling them all about onions, then hops on a mode of transportation, the train, and he heads for the Atlanta Zoo. Here, he sees all sorts of wildlife, from lions, to pandas, to flamingos, he sees it all. Yumion meets some more friends who tell him to take a shortcut through a field to get back to downtown. Yumion ends up on a rhinos back and then in a tree, but finally a nice giraffe helps him get to downtown. Yumion has only a few more miles to go, so he jumps on a bike and takes the road to the capitol. Along this route, Yumion stops at the World of Coke and then finally he made it! He gets to the capitol and is able to meet with the governor and tell him all about himself and the Vidalia onion. When Yumion finally meets the governor, he tells him, "I know that you are well aware of the town I'm from and the people there. All of us from down Vidalia way are proud of our onions and we want to say... Georgia's state vegetable should be the Vidalia onion and I came to tell you since I am the Yumion!" Yumion takes a lot of pride in his state, just like we should too, and he wants the governor to know!

This book really focuses in on the main historical places in Georgia. Even though Yumion is not a real character, which makes the book fiction, the places and sites that he sees are real! This book explores Stone Mountain, the State Farmers Market, the Zoo of Atlanta, The World of Coca Cola, and the capitol building. All of these things in mind, this book makes the perfect story for a social studies lesson all about Georgia. This book could be used as a launch for a lesson on the important places in Georgia. Since Yumion is such a cute and interesting character, he is sure to engage the students and have them excited for his trip through Georgia. In combination with this book, you could include more detailed slides about each of this important places. Students could draw their own representations of the locations and have their own explanations. Then, you could even have groups of students create their own journey through Georgia by mapping out places that they find important and interesting, and then they could present their journeys to the class. This story can also be used to represent authors from Georgia. Rhonda Frost Kight is a Georgia author, who visits elementary schools throughout Georgia telling her story and Yumion’s. She would be a great person to do a mini author study on since she could then visit your school! Along with all these activities, we could also do lessons on the crops and growth in Georgia. Since onions are a big produce here, we could take field trips to Vidalia Onion farms, and make stuffed Vidalia Onions to learn about recipes and following a "how to" or step-by-step writing. Yumion is such a fun character for the students to follow and he is sure to have the students giggling and learning at the same time!