We’ve continued our study of the five senses with a focus on our noses. This morning, the kids spent time using an eye-dropper to add a scent (cinnamon, vinegar, orange extract, vanilla, coffee, and mint) to a small cotton pad. They gave a sniff, decided if the smell was “yummy” or “yucky” and put the scented pad on the appropriate side of a styrofoam tray. Later, at meeting time, we compared the trays and made discoveries not only about what smells we like and dislike, but the many different ways that we could create six (6+0, 5+1, 4+2, 3+3, etc…)

Caroline took a sniff

Noah prepared his experiment carefully

Cadence counted her "yummy smells"

Liza used her nose

We have started talking about our senses.. all five of them, and focused on tasting, this morning. The children tasted powdered lemon juice, unsweetened cocoa, salt, and sugar and labeled them sour, bitter, salty , sweet. Tomorrow, we’ll use our noses!

Cailin gives some thought to the sugar on her finger

Christopher shows off his "sour face"

Is this salty or sour or bitter? Caroline isn't quite sure"Oooooo the lemon juice is SOUR!"

What a lovely day we had, on this, our first day back after April break. Julie and I always find that the remainder of the year zooms by from this point on and we find ourselves saying, “oh, we have to talk about this!”, Or, “When are we going to get to that?” This year is no exception. One of the best things about spending a day in a preschool classroom is that we are not bound by text books or timelines. If a particular class loves talking about and studying babies or dinosaurs or rocks, we can spend all the time we want doing just that. No matter what the interest(s) of the children, we will read books, write stories, build with blocks, create art, sing songs, etc… It’s my job (and my love) to find books and songs, etc.. to support what the children are interested in.

we will spend a bit more time looking at ourselves and delving into the five senses over the next couple of weeks. This will culminate in a special morning we call Dark Day.. more about that as it gets closer. Right now, the kids are working hard on their life-sized body tracings.

Here's Gus, adding some camouflage detail to his pants

We’ve also been changing the material offered in the sensory table. We’ve gone from rice to sand to water, to rice again and now to beans.

The sensory table was busy, this morning, as the children explored a variety of dried beans.

There’s just so much going on and so little time in which to do it.

As part of our study on growing up, the children are working on “body tracings”. Last week, Julie traced around each child on a large sheet of paper. We took photos of the children and now each member of the class is working on painting his or her “clothes” onto the tracing. We’ve been mixing colors (this will be very exciting when we begin to paint the skin and hair tones!) and the doppelgangers are hanging all around the room. Come on in and take a look! This tracing exercise was also a good opportunity to talk about private parts and to remind children that their underwear-covered body parts are for them, alone, and teachers “have no business being near them”.

Julie traced around Cailin while Cadence looked on.