Jamberry Unit Study & Printables

If you love rhyme, rhythm, and nonsense words, this Jamberry unit study is the perfect choice for you to use with your preschool student.

Repeated readings of Jamberry are sure to delight your student while helping pave the way for language patterns, phonics, and reading.

Jamberry Unit Study Lessons

Bible Memory Verse: Psalm 34:8a
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Spend the week memorizing this verse with your student.

Language: Nonsense Words
This book teaches us to have fun with language! Many of the words end in “berry.” Just for fun, call your child by their name and add berry to the end. You can do this all week with different objects:

• Time for your bathberry! 
• Go to bedberry.
• We are going to go in the carberry.
• I wonder when your dadberry will be home?

Language: Introducing Rhyme
As you read this book for the second and third time, leave out rhyming words and see if your student can remember them. If you read the book frequently, your student will likely catch on and be able to remember the rhymes. This trains your student’s ear to hear similar sounds.

Language: Introducing Rhyme
As you read this book for the second and third time, leave out rhyming words and see if your student can remember them. If you read the book frequently, your student will likely catch on and be able to remember the rhymes. This trains your student’s ear to hear similar sounds.

Tracking (Pre-Reading): Hatberry
On each page the bear and boy have their hats, but they aren’t always wearing them. Can your little student find the hats in each picture? Are there other animals wearing hats, too? Can your student find the hats, even when they are hiding in the shadows?

Math: Numbers
“One berry, two berry . . . three berry, four berry”
You may want to teach your student to count to ten and to recognize the numbers 1-10.

Science: Berries
After reading the book, close it and ask your student if they can remember some of the berries in the book (strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry). Open the book and identify each one for your student. As the days go on in this unit, ask her to identify each berry. If possible, try to have some different berries on hand and have a taste test! If you can’t locate the different types of berries mentioned, you may want to buy jelly/jam in a few of the flavors and taste-test those.

You could also try planting some berry plants and watching their growth.

Science: Taste Buds
If you taste-tested berries, you may want to discuss taste buds and that God made your student’s tongue for tasting. You can expand your preschooler’s vocabulary by introducing him to salty, sweet, bitter, and sour foods. 

Salty: lick a potato chip
Sweet: remind him that the berries were sweet; you could also give him a piece of candy or some ice cream
Sour: lick a lemon
Bitter: try grapefruit, unsweetened chocolate, or coffee

Fine Motor: Make Berry Yummy “Pies”
You will need at red, blue, or purple construction paper (or you can use all three), glue, scissors, and a paper plate for this activity. Let your child cut out berries from the construction paper. If your child isn’t ready for scissors, just let him tear the paper into small berries.

After they have cut or torn plenty of berries, let them paste them on to the paper plate for a berry pie!

Music and Movement: Jamberry Dance
You will need some crepe paper streamers for this activity. Show your student Bruce Degen’s illustration of the bear, the boy, the ponies and the lambs dancing in the meadow with streamers. Then, turn on some music and dance with your streamers just like the animals and boy in the story. You can introduce opposites as you dance (hold your streamer high, hold your streamer low; dance fast, dance slow; wave your streamer in the sky, touch your streamer to the ground, etc.)

Jamberry Printable Activities

The free Jamberry unit study download includes these printable activities:

• Berry Pattern Activity Page
• Fine Motor Berry Page (color, trace, cut)
• Berry Alphabet Cut & Paste
• Berry Tracing Page
• Counting Berries Mini-book
• Rhyming Words Flapbook
• I Can Taste Matchbook
• Hat Shadow Matching Game

How to Get Started

Follow these simple instructions to get started with the Jamberry unit study and printables:

1. Buy a copy of the book, Jamberry, or grab one from your local library.
2. Print the Jamberry unit study and printables.
3. Choose the lessons you want to use with your student (a highlighter works great for this).
4. Choose and prepare the printables you want to use with your student.
5. Enjoy a week of fun-filled Jamberry learning with your preschool student.

Download Your Unit Study and Printables

Simply click on the image below to access your free Jamberry unit study and printables.

More Preschool Resources

If you are looking for another book about a bear and a berry, try this unit study and lapbook combo.

If your student loved the rhyme and rhythm of Jamberry, try this unit study.