Our Five Senses

Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste are our five senses and here is how we explored our day using our senses…

Mixing Playdough

October and November have been eventful weeks!  We prepared three different kinds of playdough for our Halloween party and today, we used our sense of SIGHT while we mixed a batch of orange playdough and a batch of dark blueish/grayish playdough.  This table was very popular from the beginning to the end with different friends constantly coming in and out.  K enjoyed taking some orange playdough and sticking wooden chips and sticks inside.  J and W flattened some playdough and made “hamburgers.”  E used a cookie cutter to make shapes and neatly placed pinecones and wooden chips on top.  N was very impressed seeing Seila make Baikinman!

Sweet Potato Painting -Part Two-

Just before the Fall break, we started working on a group art using the sweet potatoes dug by our Flowers and Petals friends.  For the first stage, we sliced a sweet potato in pieces and used them as stamps and we also used the roots as brushes.  Today, we worked on the second stage and we actually added some sweet potatoes in/on our art piece!  How did we do that?  Well, first we steamed a big sweet potato and mashed it like mashed potato.  Then we added some white glue and water and stirred them all together until we made some mushy and sticky, you might call it, homemade sweet potato paint.  Already we smelt the sweet scent from the sweet potato but to give it a kick, we added some spices such as cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  K did the smelling check and with her go sign we were good to go ;)  The smell was good so next was colors to consider - it had a color of pale yellow with bits of purple here and there and because we can never be tired of glitters, we decided to add some golden and red glitter paint.  Observing the lumpy soft texture of the red glitter paint, J said, “It’s like strawberry (jam).”  Then J arrived with a handful of beautiful leaves which we put aside and he started adding some golden glitter paint with a paintbrush and attentively examined the effect he was giving to the art piece.

Translucent Blocks

We are often too busy with our cars and trucks but today this corner was busy with translucent blocks!  S carefully stacked the blocks on top like a tower and the next moment, W joined to help; L built a magnificent castle-like house; N too made a tower as tall as himself!  Soon the colorful blocks turned into vegetables and fruits - J, L and K busily went or “drove” around the classroom with a pot or a container and fed their friends and teachers.  Seeing the chairs lined up, soon the chairs turned into trains - J, W and L were busy chanting “chuga chuga choo choo!”  How fun it is when one play evolves into something else  - we can never get tired of playing! 

Circle Time

“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”  We started our circle time singing one of our favorite songs and we chipped in some great ideas - K suggested “jump” and J suggested “click our tongue.”  Once we settled nicely on our bottoms, sitting criss-cross applesauce, first we sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in a slow version and by then we were anticipating to sing next time…FAST! Hehehe It is always fun to sing the same song in different ways.  Speaking of different body parts, we learned a new song today called “Five Senses.”  Our learning theme has shifted from our FEET to our SENSES and we are excited to explore our surrounding world using as many senses as we can :)   After greeting each other with our Good Morning song, we used our sense of SMELL and sniffed at some white powdery substance which had no scent.  Then we sniffed at some brown powdery substance which was scentful and some of us even declined saying, “No, thank you.”  The second one comes in a stick and it has such a lovely Autumny scent.  Yes, it was cinnamon.  For the first one, we got to TASTE it and it was sweet.  Can you guess what it was?  It was sugar :)  No wonder we asked for more but luckily, it was time for snacks and we prefer to fill up our tummy with healthy food!  

For storytime, we read Today Is Monday by Eric Carle for the best way in using our five senses is undoubtedly, cooking and eating!!!

Thank you for another lovely day!

Love from all the children in Buds