Children learn about the world through their five senses. My kiddos spent the week using their senses to participate in language, math, science and art activities. Since we just finished our bear unit, I found a really simple video on you tube about Betsy Bear and her hunt for dinner using her five senses. It was very low quality, but the Bear's voice made all of the kids giggle. We spent the week doing many sensory activities and ended the week making "Five Senses Betsy Bears." We used jingle bear ears, google eyes, a cotton ball dipped in orange extract nose, a peppermint mouth and sand paper paws.
To kick off our sensory experiences, we did candy cane science part 2! I got it right this time and used baking soda. We reviewed the chart that listed our observations from the previous experiment. This helped us to remember what happened so that we could compare our results. The first obvious difference that they picked up on was the bubbles! They came up with some great descriptive words...fizzy, bubbly, foamy, noisy. These observations directly contrasted with the previous experiments descriptive words...smooth, slimy, silky, quiet.
They enjoyed exploring our sense boxes in science. Their favorite by far was the sense of touch box. It contains dozens of objects with differing textures as well as mystery balloons. After discussing the contents of the box and identifying words to describe each texture, the kiddos were free to explore on their own. I heard some great vocabulary.
Notice the child in green. He is feeling the mystery balloon and trying to figure out what is in it. He did it! He found a bag with flour and determined that the balloon felt the same as the bag of flour when he squeezed it.
We used jingle bells and other instruments during circle time to explore our sense of hearing.
Most, if not all of our exploration opportunities are multi-sensory. One of my favorite early literacy activities is to use cooked spaghetti to form letters and words. I took this activity and put a holiday spin on it. I used food coloring to dye cooked linguine red and green, sprinkled some glitter and added a few drops of peppermint and voila...linguine letters.
Our classroom moms came in on Thursday to help us celebrate Jesus' birthday. Mrs. W and Mrs. D did an awesome job! They brought us Christmas brownies, juice and popcorn for our sense of taste. The kiddos got to make "eye spy" ornaments. This activity fit perfectly in to our lessons. Great minds think alike :-) What a great ending activity for our Five Senses Unit!!!!
My intention was to publish this the first day of break. Didn't quite make that deadline...but finished before the break was over! Today feels like Sunday, which is going to be great when it feels like Tuesday, but it is actually Friday.
My best wishes to you all for a happy and prosperous New Year!!!
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