Adventures in Berryland

Our week with Berries started this morning! This was my first time setting the stage for our week of learning by placing all of the books we will be using out in a nice arrangement. I will get better at this as I get used to it. . . including having the girls dressed before they come down so the pictures come out a little better, ha! :-)

But the girls noticed the books immediately and were really excited -- even though they had already seen these books when I brought them home from the library! There really is something to the whole arrangement thing!

They started reading the books to themselves and after I snapped a ton of pictures, we cuddled on the sofa and read them all! We read Jamberry, The Giant Jam Sandwich, Blueberries for Sal, The Berry Book and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear. We also read Father Bear's Special Day, which is about Father's Day, and a couple stories in The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury that I managed to fit with our theme (we just checked this book out and are loving it!)

After we read the stories, several of which were read multiple times, we then decided to try some berries! We had purchased a few different types of berries at the store yesterday -- Strawberries, Blackberries and dried Cranberries (not quite the same as fresh but hey it is better than nothing). We didn't get Blueberries because we are picking a bunch of those Thursday evening! So we sat down and tried them. . . Cali loves her Strawberries and has decided it is still her favorite, whereas Jordan has a new favorite -- Blackberries (good thing, too, because I'm not such a fan lol).

After having fun with that for a bit, I told them that the berries were sweet and that there were other tastes as well -- salty, sour and bitter. So I got out a potato chip and had them lick it to taste the salt... they did very well with this and were patient until I told them they could go ahead and EAT the potato chip, too! Then we tried a berry again for sweet. Then came unsweetened chocolate for bitter -- YUCK! They both did better than me, I ran to the sink to spit it out while I was trying to get us all something to drink. . . Jordan just sat there with a pained look on her face until she got some juice, LOL! Then we got out the lemon for sour. Jordan loves lemons, but her favorite was sweet with the berries. Cali's favorite was salty with the potato chip.

For lunch we made Blueberry muffins... not quite the same as fresh berries, but we will have those later this week. After lunch, we watched a Strawberry Shortcake DVD that has all the berries in it and has a fun lesson on the importance of good manners, which Jordan has been repeating all afternoon! We also have had fun talking about rhyme and making up words -- in Jamberry, the author adds the word "berry" to many words : hatberry, basketberry, etc; So we have come up with bedberry, petberry, Mommyberry, blanketberry, bathberry, whaleberry -- as in her whale floaty toy for the pool that has now become like a not-so-imaginary friend!-- and more!

It has been a lot of fun today and they really remembered the different tastes. Later in the day, Cali asked for a strawberry and after I gave her one, she asked for "sour", pointing to the lemon! A few hours later, Jordan said she wanted sweet (meaning she wanted some more berries) and Cali asked for salt (wanting some more chips). Fun and learning with food!

Tomorrow we will be making Strawberry Jam! Not sure how this will go since I have never done this before but I have a recipe that was in the back of The Berry Book and some canning jars, so we shall see :-)