As an educator I have the great pleasure of working with partnering schools which have a sincere interest in finding elevated ways to guide youth, so that learning is something they crave. At the Child-Parent Centers, Inc. Head Start program in Tucson, Arizona, we have been on this journey with them since 2003 and each year the level of learning for children, teachers, and parents increases.
One of the centers I interact with is the Sunnyside Center. At this center, they choose areas of interest that the children have and connect them in meaningful ways to learning. Not just academic learning, but the Art of Learning... critical thinking combined with creative thinking. The most recent area of interest led to a study in Science...physical science, biological science, and earth science!
Through experiences the children had over a period of months, along with authentic conversations with teachers and parents, children came up with their own definition of physical science seen above. Below is one of several adult definitions.
When the learner, at any age, is allowed to discover the definition for themselves, the amount of critical thinking and creative thinking is very high. Even if the definition they come up with isn't exactly accurate, the journey they take in discovering at least part of the answer make the comprehension of the actual definition much more meaningful. Let's take a look at that journey!
All children play with some form of block or puzzle. What's important to notice here is that a teacher or parent took the time to ask a question, wait for the response, and then document what the child said. For any learner, when you see yourself in an image and your words, this is highly affirming, which leads to more trust, then risk and of course leads to more growth.
Working in groups and taking the time to observe the process of things in nature may seem simple, but this usually leads to a love of observing which is connected to keeping curiosity alive in the learner... what would your life look like if you kept a high level of curiosity?
If you were the guide in the above setting, what question might you ask of the child related to what is happening, what happened or what might happen? Feel free to post your questions in the comments section below.
Guiding children in creating liquids with different qualities can be a visually stimulating experience and one that has no limits. What could you create with basic elements? With the ability to search online for an unlimited amount of recipes, take a moment to think about what you could help your children create. Could they eventually come up with their own recipes?
Science can be related to something children already enjoy doing. It's our job to facilitate that with guided questions, paying attention to the child's response, whether it be a gesture or words, as it was in the case above with Robert.
The simple pleasure in life are so rewards and so are the simple pleasures in learning. They may be simple, yet they can be profound. Once Gabbi knows that she can use her hands to pinch clay to hold certain shapes, what else may Gabbi realize she can do with her hands, her fingers, clay, a pencil, and more?
Children also explored biological science and created their own definitions!
As part of biological science children can begin to identify stages or steps. This is a form of pattern and sequence, which exist in any area of learning, from math to music and in this case, science.
Understanding a child's interest is key because any interest can be used to teach any subject matter, assuming the teacher is clever enough to improvise and grow themselves. In Aniza's case, she enjoys food, cooking, and making things for her friends. What kinds of questions could you ask this preschool child? Colors, amounts, shapes, differences, contrasting elements (big/small, etc.)... the possibilities are endless.
Speaking of food, how about making some butter!
Categorization and decision making...oh yeah!
Children were also engaged in experiences related to
Earth Science!
In the beginning stages of science, there is typically an overlap of definition and perhaps even confusion related to what kinds of things are certain types of science. In letting the children first experience and later label, the children discover WHY something is earth science and WHY something is biological science or some other type of science. This is very different than simply being told or memorizing different categories. 1) It's much more engaging, 2) the learner creates their own framework, 3) the learner fuels their curiosity and 4) they do actually learn the definition, but in a more meaningful context.
Comparing and contrasting soil and sand...think, think, think.... Pensive!
The Art of observation... in this case how a fish swims.
Can the study of science be integrated with Art? Can it be connect to the understanding of shapes, perspective and color? Yes, yes, and yes. Can it be connected to academic standards? Sure, but of course that's a natural byproduct of any truly engaged learner.
Plain old rocks, right? Notice the care with which the learner is handling and observing. What questions could you
ask as this child's guide?
Understanding weather patterns and the relationship between the sun being out, still being cold, and it being winter. What other combinations predict weather and/or seasons?
This next example could be considered a form of biological science if your focus is on the bag or the air, but it could be earth science if the focus is on the human being producing the air. Either way the idea of experimenting to see if air can move is a big idea that has led to alternate forms of energy. Encouraging children to recreate that information on their own allows them to take roads travelled by some very well known scientists and perhaps beyond.... oh the places you'll go!
Recently in Tucson, Arizona, it actually snowed. This was a very special day for us who live in the southwest and provided a fantastic opportunity for children to explore where snow comes from, why it's not rain, how quickly or slowly it falls and why.
If you're new to my blog on the 5th of every month, you might be wondering why I ask so many questions of children and of you. I could tell you, but I'd be robbing you from the experience if I did, so instead I'll answer this question in the following manner.
Hi! It's Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands & Sticking Together. Today I am going to share the way I teach The Five Senses. I don't think I could ever again teach The Five Senses without Mr. Broom. He actually lives right in my classroom closet- and remains virtually unnoticed most weeks of the year, but during our Five Senses week, he is the star!
He could not be a less-techy, less-fancy prop, but every student who comes back to visit me always remembers him and our week learning about the senses.
I usually teach The Five Senses in the Spring, but I know fall and Christmas are both also great times to fit them into the schedule, so I thought now would be a good time for this post.
I made the features for Mr. Broom's senses, but you could use Mr. Potato head pieces or anything else you can think of that would be more clever. Art is NOT my strong suit, as you probably noticed! ;)
I am going to share a quick overview of my week, and some activities I love to do for each sense. I will condense my descriptions since there is a LOT- but you can click on the heading to see my original post about the sense at my blog that has more detail if you would like.
I made a Five Senses Prezi where I put all of the links I use for this unit together in one place, along with the booklet that I use for each sense. We use the Prezi each day, throughout the day-both to teach about the senses and review whenever we have some extra time.
When I introduce Mr. Broom, he comes to us with only his nose- his first sense. I introduce the sense of smell by reading Follow Your Nose by Paul Showers and Sense of Smell by Maria Ruiz. We do activities all day long to that help the children think about their sense of smell. I made scented playdough for Free Choice time last year. I had never made the Bisquick play dough before in the microwave, but it was so easy and a great texture.
Here is the recipe:
Bisquick Play Dough
2 cups Bisquick
1 cup salt
2 cups water
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
1 Tbsp oil
Mix all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 3 minutes. Scrape and stir the bowl. Microwave for another 3 minutes. Mine was perfect to knead then. If not, microwave for another minute.
I separated this into 3 parts and put it into Ziplock bags. I added the food coloring and mixed it in the bags so the play dough was beautiful colors - and my hands were still human looking. I also added the extracts at this time.
These are the colors/flavors I made: brown- real cinnamon; yellow- banana; orange- orange; green- mint; pink- coconut (because that was the other extract I had... and I didn't have something fun like raspberry or strawberry); white- vanilla
I used quite a bit of extract so it smelled great. (So did my kitchen!) I think the kids were most fascinated with the real cinnamon. This time of year, I would probably use pumpkin pie spice for orange. YUM!
For our quiet walks in the hall, I use another smell favorite. Before we leave the classroom, I put a magic dot on each child's hand to smell, to remind them to be quiet and walk nicely in the hall. I bought these last year, and they have been worth every single penny. The kids love them!
During Literacy Centers, we work on Secret Scented Sight Words. (This sounded much better than Secret Smelly Sight Words.) I tried having the children write secret sight words for each other, but found it worked much better if I prepared the papers, and the children colored over the white space to reveal the secret word that I wrote. It is a good day when those smelly markers make an appearance!
Our next activity is Guess the Smell! The children sit in a circle. They know to nod their head "yes" if they think they know the smell, but nobody says a word until I count to three after we have all had a chance to smell, and we say the answer together. They do an awesome job with this. It only takes one time when a child "goofs," shouts out the answer, and someone acts disappointed, and then nobody else wants ruin the fun.
Last year I discovered the BEST way to have children guess smells.
These are PERFECT for smell bottles! I put a cotton ball with mint and vanilla extracts, baby powder, cinnamon, peanut butter (that you can see on the inside of that back yellow bottle!), and garlic powder inside these. As I went around the circle, I just squeezed the bottle and a puff of smell came out! So easy! I got them at the Dollar Store- 2 for a dollar! The kids loved exploring them later, too.
We complete the page in our Five Senses booklet about the Sense of Smell:
(I'm not quite sure what a duck smells like, but...)
The children see Mr. Broom's lovely eyelashes, and usually say he should be named Mrs. Broom. That is a great conversation starter to explain that both boys and girls have eyelashes, eyebrows, and eyelids that help keep our eyes safe and help keep dirt out of our eyes.
The children loved to make the connections that the nose hairs also help keep out dirt, which was really neat! Look Here by Sally Hewitt is a good book to introduce the sense of sight.
We continue our lesson by talking about the names of the parts of the eye. I have some good diagrams on my Five Senses Prezi.
The children turn and talk to teach these parts of the eye to a friend. We learn that the iris is the colored part of the eye and the pupil is the dark part of the eye in the middle that lets light into the eye. They study their friend's eye and see what color the iris was and to see the pupil.
Next, we talked about how the pupil gets bigger when it is darker, because it needs to let more light into the eye so we can see better. When it is light, the pupil is smaller.
The partners look right into each other's eyes. I pull the shades, so when I turned off the lights it was quite dark. They stare at each other's pupils when I turned on the lights to watch them get smaller. This is a favorite!
Other times during the day, I bring up different Optical Illusions for the children to see- to see how our eyes see things differently sometimes. I have yet another Optical Illusion Prezi that I use for this! (of course... haha- I love my Prezis!!!)
Our memory game is next! I cover ten items on a tray with a towel. As the children sit in a circle, I walk slowly around as they study the items quietly and try to remember what they see. After all the children see the items, I cover the tray again and we try to remember the items together and make a list.
Since Mr. Broom is just seeing for the first time, we show him how he would know if we were happy, sad, grouchy, scared, cold, tired, and mad- by making faces at him to show our emotions. This is another easy and fun favorite.
We talk about how some people need glasses to be able to see better. Mr. Broom has some glasses to help him see better sometimes, too, of course.
I always take out my contact lens to show them what they look like, too. They love that. :)
We discussed what it means to be blind and not be able to see. I have a beautiful real Braille book that I let the children look at and feel to show them how a blind person would read instead of looking at the words. McDonalds will give you a Braille menu. They have breakfast and lunch menus.
We also talk about how deaf people actually use their eyes to help them "hear" and speak with sign language.
While we have a few minutes waiting for buses or before lunch, we play I Spy- an all time favorite.
One of my Literacy Centers is Look and Find and I Spy books- always a hit!
Our final activity is writing and labeling our five favorite things to see in our Five Senses book.
I show the children the diagrams of the ear on the Prezi and we talked about the different parts of the ear. They love knowing the fun fact about the three smallest bones in their bodies being in their ears!
The hearing sense below is the preview of my Five Senses Prezi . I put together links that I use for each sense so they are all in one place and easy to access.
We read TheListening Walk by Paul Showers and then take our own listening walk-outside weather permitting!
I ask the children what they would hear if a dog were hungry, a cat wanted to come inside, someone told a funny joke, if someone had a cold, if daddy is sleeping, if someone called on the phone, if bacon were cooking on the stove, if a baby were hungry, if pigs were hungry, and finally if they were a mouse in a house ( for quiet! :) .
We discuss why listening is so important. Why do we need to listen to teachers? friends? policemen? parents? fire drills? This is another great time for a turn and talk. It is fun to listen to their explanations.
We play a quick game of Simon Says just to be sure our ears are working well. Listening Lotto is a fun activity, too. If we don't get a chance to go outside for our listening walk, I play the cd of sounds and we guess those. The game is fun, but usually I don't have time with the whole class to play it, so we enjoy guessing the sounds.
While the children write their five favorite sounds to hear in their books, I call up one at a time to talk to each one on our "phone." I asked each child a question and they answered me. This is as simple as can be, and always a hit. I am sure I have a chance to talk to each child before I put these out for exploration and they get tangled up, which will inevitably happen. Oh well!
Here are some favorite things to hear!
I have Easter eggs filled with different things that the children can guess by listening. Ages ago- I used film canisters for this. :) I don't even think I could find them anymore. The eggs work well. I just tape them shut with packaging tape and they stay shut really well. I play this with the whole group and we try to match the pictures I have of what is inside with the sound each egg makes. I have two sets of eggs so the children can also match the eggs by sound. My eggs are filled with rice, cotton balls, sand, a super ball, nails, and pennies. After we play this together as a class, I leave the eggs out so the children can play with it on their own.
I love to share this poem with the children:
The Tiniest Sound by Mel Evans
I used to think the tiniest sound in the world might be a baby snowflake leaving a little white cloud
to drift gently down through a misty sky to the softest spot
on the tip-top tassel
of a snuggly cap
on the snoozely head
of a furry baby bunny.
What do you think…?
This is a great introduction to an interactive writing lesson about sounds. We came up with lots of quiet, teeny tiny sounds like a snake in a field, tip toeing to sneak up on someone, blowing a dandelion to make a wish, a leaf falling, a butterfly flying, whispers, and saying quiet prayers. You could come up with any kind of sound lists. I was thinking that this year we may make some posters and leave them up around the room for the children to add to: Farm Sounds, LOUD sounds, Forest Sounds, City Sounds, School Sounds, Family Sounds, Dinner Sounds, Happy Sounds,... it is endless!
Mr. Broom may look rude sticking out his tongue, but he is just showing you that now he can taste!
I ask the children what parts of the mouth we use to taste. Do we use our lips? teeth? tongue? We talk about the taste buds and the fact that different places on the tongue are used for different tastes. I have the children stick out their tongues and turn to a friend. They LOVE this. We examine taste buds for a minute. Then, I use this diagram to explain which taste buds work best for which tastes.
I use Maria Ruiz's book The Five Senses- Taste to introduce this sense.
Bread and Jam for Frances is great for discussing how important it is to try different foods, and how only eating the same food gets dull.
Next, we sit in a circle and get ready for our tasting party. My children are very good at waiting for everyone to have food before eating (because we practice it every day at snack!) but it is extra important for our tasting party, so we can experience the tastes together.
I start with a pretzel for salty. Then we get ready for our "Pucker Party." The children can explore their lemon with their other senses- feel it, look at it, smell it, and PREPARE TO PUCKER!
There are always one or two who enjoy eating the entire lemon slice with a smile, which is very impressive to the others!
Then we move on to our M&M for sweet.
I usually don't do "bitter." Unsweetened chocolate would be a good choice. I usually tell them that the medicine they take when they are sick is a good example of bitter.
I have seen the idea of having the children use pop sickle sticks to try tasting salt water, sugar water, and vinegar. I have never tried this, though. It is neat because they all would look the same- maybe next year!
The children go back to their seats and have a black strip of paper. On it, I put a pinch of salt on one side and sugar on the other.
They examine it with magnifying glasses, smell it, touch it, but do not taste it, and have to guess which was which. It was tricky.
Once I let them use that sense of taste, it is REALLY easy!
We draw and label our five favorite things to taste in the packet and watch some taste videos on the Smart board.
Mr. Broom is complete with his sense of touch! Isn't he handsome?
Here is an up close look at his hands: VERY simple and homemade. Maybe that is what the children love about him. Who knows?! (That's what I am telling myself anyway- it is probably because they feel so sorry for the way he looks! :)
I hot-glued different textures to each finger so the children could also feel them.
One of the first questions is usually, "Where are his feet?" This is actually great- because we talk about how all of our skin can feel things, but that we use our hands to feel most things because our fingertips are more sensitive than other parts of our bodies.
We start our lesson by reading The Sense of Touch, by Elaine Landau.
I make feely bags for our circle activity. I just use brown lunch bags, except for the ice and cooked spaghetti. I put a ziplock baggie inside the brown bag for those! I always think I am going to get more sturdy bags for this, because the bags usually rip a little just from the children reaching inside. Next year!:)
In my bags, I have: a pompom, a superball , a golf ball, a screw driver, ice cubes, a candle, a stone, cooked spaghetti, a comb, and a marshmallow. I take the bags around the circle, and the children reach in and nod if they think they know what is inside, so I can continue on. We only do about four at one sitting. They are very good about reaching in and not peeking, because I show them how I can peek in and know the answer, and it isn't even fun anymore!
I have one student come up and put on a glove before he reaches into the bag. It is hard to tell the golf ball from the super ball without fingertips to help feel the details of the ball.
You can also use a sock for this.
We talk about how some things can change how they feel. The ice cube can go from a freezing cube to water.
Brownie batter is a fun example because it starts as powder, then is more liquid as you add ingredients, and finally becomes a solid brownie.
We play a game where the children turn to a partner and draw a shape on the partner's back so the partner has to guess the shape. We tried letters, but shapes work best. Letters were tricky!
I told them they had to be sure to "erase" after they drew a shape and started a new one. They all loved that part!
We do a quick interactive writing activity listing soft things like: my chair cushion, Kayla's baby brother's cheek, lamb's wool, a puppy's ear, cotton balls, my soft furry jacket, a pillow. Then we list rough things. My favorite rough thing was 'the blacktop' because one of my little guys just fell down on it outside! We list a few hard things, sticky things, and bumpy things (for which of course, someone last year said, "Braille!"- yay!)
To tie this back to our quest for kindness, we talk about our "Warm Fuzzies" and how they feel soft and fuzzy- and make us feel warm and happy on the inside. "Cold Pricklies" are not kind and make you feel cold and prickly on the inside. This is a different type of "feeling." Everyone got a "Warm Fuzzy" to remember to be kind.
We draw and label our five favorite things to touch, and review with some videos on the Smart board.
This is usually the favorite Five Senses song, so we have to begin with this:
Next, we play a game the children love. One child is blindfolded, and sitting in my chair. Another student says, "Hello." The blindfolded student tries to decide who speaking using only his sense of hearing. If he can't decide, he can feel the person to see if the hair is long or short, if there is a pony tail or head band, glasses or no glasses. If needed, he could use his sense of sight! Smell and taste didn't really fit the game. :)
I could not RESIST this blindfold from Target- the fabulous dollar section! I knew it amused me when I bought it, but then when the kids put it on, we spend the first few minutes laughing at each other, then get on with the game!
Next, we study some popcorn using all of our senses. We talk about popcorn and brainstorm some descriptive words to tell how it looks, sounds, smells, feels, and tastes.
This is a fabulous book about getting children to love to write:
One thing I always remember that Marjorie Frank says, is that you have to "romance" your writers. If you want them to write about something, they need to be immersed in it- touching it, tasting it, studying it, playing with it. I romance the class with some popcorn as we write about it! Ideally, a hot air popper is best- because it is so much better for hearing the popping and smelling the popcorn.
Then, I romance them with some peanut butter.
Everyone gets a picture taken with our celebrity for the cover of their Five Senses Book.
The booklet that I use for my unit with my Prezi at my TPT store has two different covers- one is only the title, a space for a name, and a blank area, because that is where I put a picture of the child with Mr. Broom. The other cover has a little five senses picture on it if you would rather use that. The booklet includes each sense and the information about that sense that I also have on the Prezi, plus a page where the child draws and labels his/her favorite things to go with that sense.
It also includes the pages I use for our culminating activity when we use our senses to describe popcorn, apples, and peanut butter.
Thank you for sharing the five senses with me (and Mr. Broom!)
