We read a book called The Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young in which each of the mice feel a different part of an elephant and think it is something else (trunk-rope, leg- pillar, tail- rope). I made each of the elephant pieces out of felt, as the mice in the book felt a new part the children put up an elephant piece on the felt board until they guessed what the actual animal was in the book. It was a great way to discuss sense of touch.
We also read Duck Rabbit by Amy Krouse Rosenthal as introduction to the sense of sight. The illustrations in the book can be seen as either a duck or a rabbit. It was great to see what the children thought.
The children also explored several I Spy books by Walter Wick and the book Look, Look, Look by Tania Hoban.
In small groups we played a take away game in which we created our own I Spy with classroom objects. The children then closed their eyes and one object was removed. They had to guess which object was missing. Another game we played was Guess What? We took turns pressing an object into playdoh and the children had to guess the object based on its impression.
Our sense of hearing was put into practice as the children listened to different noises from a White Noise App and had to guess what made the noise. We also made music with musical instruments and the children made their own tambourines with paper plates and beans.
When introduced to the sense of smell, the children smelled several different scents and then sorted them by scents they like and those they don't.
Finally, students participated in a taste test during which they tasted something sweet, salty, sour and bitter. They determined which tastes they preferred and which they didn't and then graphed their results.
Embedded within our theme, we continued to focus on the difference between fiction and nonfiction texts, number recognition, letter recognition, counting, identifying syllables, data collection, sorting, and comparing sets using the words more and less.
Dramatic Play:
There were many new activities in the classroom including our 5 Senses Museum in the dramatic play area. Here students practiced making designs and building on a light table, felt different textures on the Touch Wall, made music with instruments and tested their sense of smell by trying to match pictures to smells in smelling bottles.
Art:
Student created texture collages.
Sensory:
The children explored the properties of Ooblek (corn starch and water).
Gym:
In gym class students practiced skills of jumping from spot to spot trying not to land in the "ocean" during a game called Shark Attack. In addition, they pretended to be different animals in a game called Stump the Teacher.
