Jamberry by Bruce Degen

Gathering Activity: Strawberry Streamers

Materials Needed: sturdy paper plate, variety of colored streamers cut into lengths, clip art of large strawberry coloring sheet, crayons, glue

Directions: Allow the children to color their strawberries.  Then glue streamers onto the bottom of the paper plate, so that they hang down from the plate.  Glue colored strawberry on top.  Allow to dry before use.

Circle Time:   Jamberry by Bruce Degen

 Jamberry is a beautiful picture book which tells the story of a young boy and his friend, the bear, who go on an adventure picking berries.  It is a nonsensical rhyming story with a fun rhythm that rolls off the tongue.  My own children ask me to read it several times in one sitting.  Each page is rich with humorous details.  
 
After reading the book, we sang our own version of "One little, two little, three little berries..."

Outside Activity: Strawberry Picking

A few weeks ago, we had planted strawberry plants in our garden.  Today it was time to harvest them!

Inside Activity and Snack: Making Freezer Jam 

We allowed the children to make freezer jam using the strawberries from the garden (plus a few additional berries from the local strawberry patch).  The children were each given a jar to take home.  After making the jam, we sampled several kinds of berries that we had read about in the story.   For directions, see the back of your freezer jam packet.

Dancing with our Streamers

In the book, the characters dance with streamers in strawberry fields.  Our little ones danced with their streamers to fun music.  It was hard to catch the action with my camera!

***We had some friends this week who were unable to come, so we had only 3 boys.