Strawberries

It's strawberry picking time here in central Virginia, and even though taking young kids to the berry patch is not quite as romantic as it sounds, we braved it.  I'm glad of it, too.  The boys had a blast, and they were even pretty good and picking mostly ripe ones.


We found some good books at the library to go along with our strawberry theme.  The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story introduces kids to Native American mythology and warns them of how powerfully angry women can become. 

An older book (1989), Strawberry, was nonetheless extremely informative on the growth of strawberry plants.  I learned a few things from it, anyway. 

Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher is a wordless Caldecott Honor book by Molly Bang that received great editorial reviews.  I find the pictures very creepy-- frightening, in fact, but my boys are not so disturbed by them.  In fact, they like the book.  Kids.

Jamberry and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear were fun even for Baby.

In addition to the strawberry picking, I found an awesome sensory experience in this recipe for strawberry-scented play dough.  In the past I've struggled to make good play dough, so I was extra careful this time, using the whisk in the beginning to avoid sticking and, later, the silicone spatula.  One neat facet of this was the possibility of using the dough while it was still warm-- very soothing for overstimulated kids and adults.


Our art project came from activity village and is a cute handprint strawberry.  I love handprint art!

 The leaves are pinky fingers painted green, and the black dots are fingerprints.

One of my artists was unsatisfied with the resulting strawberry and painted over it to get a "better" product.  The black dots outside are bugs.

At the u-pick strawberry farm we bought a coloring book for 50 cents that told the tale of strawberry plant life cycles.  T colored it almost obsessively for two days.

Below is my favorite strawberry song, which I found at Step by Step.  They have tons of other strawberry snacks, songs, and activities there for further exploration.

Anyway, I sang this so many times this week that I started dreaming with it as a soundtrack.

Picked a Strawberry - sung to "Clementine"

Picked a strawberry,
Picked a strawberry
That was growing
In the sun.
Then I washed it,
And I ate it,
And I picked another one.

Like felt food and have some time on your hands?  You can make your own felt food strawberry following this free tutorial.  

We love felt food around here but it'll take me a while to get around to the strawberry pattern.  Maybe in time for T's graduation from high school. 

Check out what I did make time for, though.  Strawberry shortcake and strawberry milkshakes.  Yummy!