Sour, Sweet, and Salty....

This morning the kids were all surprised to find that the Touch and Feel was full of LEMONS!  Some of them immediately guessed that our sense of the day was taste!  We rolled the lemons and counted the lemons and squeezed the lemons.....and if I'm honest.....there was some tossing of the lemons too!

We made a chart today classifying different tastes.  Some things are sweet because they have a lot of sugar.  Most of the kids really liked everything in this line of the chart.  Other things taste sour.  Sour things like lemons and limes make our lips pucker in a funny face.  Salty things like chips, pretzels, and french fries make us feel very thirsty.  

Today' book was Delicious by Helen Cooper.  This story is about a VERY picky eater who refuses to try anything new....sound familiar?  Three friends, Cat, Squirrel, and Duck, have a very serious problem: there are no ripe pumpkins in the garden for their favorite soup! They'll have to make something else, but while Cat and Squirrel are willing to experiment, all Duck wants is pumpkin soup. He won't even try a taste of the fish soup or mushroom soup, and the beet soup his friends make is the last straw-- "I'm not eating that," he says. "It's pink!" Can Cat and Squirrel find a way to please their fussy friend?  The kids loved this story.....but I'm quite certain none of them saw the parallel between the book and themselves!!

The science for today was a good trial immediately following a story about someone who wouldn't try new things!!  We took the lemons from the Touch and Feel and cut them up.  We smelled them (with our noses), looked at them (with our eyes), and touched them (with our hands).  We talked about all the information that each sense gave us.  We could see that the lemons were yellow and had seeds inside.  They felt wet and cold.  Then.....we tasted the lemons.  Despite the sour faces, some of the kids actually said that they like the taste!  Others.....not so much!  It was easy to use our new vocabulary word "sour" to describe the lemons.....but one child even deemed the lemons "not very delicious"!

Ms. Laura handed out our next thing to taste....sugar.  We used all of our senses again to help us get some more information.  We could see it was white and in tiny little pieces.  We could feel that it was like sand.  For the record, we strongly discouraged smelling it!!And when we tasted it.....it was a big hit!  Again, it was very easy to classify the sugar as sweet.

But....the real science was about what would happen if we mixed these two flavors?  Each child took a turn squeezing out some juice from the lemon.  Together with the children we squeezed out 32 lemon halves!  We put that juice in cups.....and tasted again!  I'm not sure where these lemons came from....but they were extremely SOUR!  Then we added some water and some sugar.....and tasted again!  Our intent was to produce some lemonade....but considering the 32 potent lemons we used.....we never quite succeeded in getting a sweet refreshing drink. The kids thought it was neat though....and it definitely taught them about sour tasting things!  I'm talking eyes watering, mouth puckered tight kind of sour!!

What a fun way to end the week!  Can't wait to see what next week holds....a new month and a new theme! 

It's SO Noisy In Here!!

It was a NOISY start to the day because the Touch and Feel was filled with musical instruments.  There were bells ringing, shakers shaking, and symbols clanging!  The children immediately guessed which sense was today's topic:  hearing!!  

To introduce the theme, Ms. Laura played a fun game where the kids could only use their EARS to figure out different sounds.  She played animal sounds, transportation sounds, outside sounds, and some sounds from inside our houses.  It took the kids a while to realize that we weren't going to get to see any pictures.....because we were only using our sense of hearing!

Today's book was The Very Noisy Night by Diana Hendry.  When Little Mouse hears an ominous "huffing and puffing" outside the house, Big Mouse says that it's only the wind. Then Little Mouse imagines something scary when he hears an owl, and he envisions a stranger outside when a branch taps on the window. Each time Little Mouse begs to come into Big Mouse's bed, but Big Mouse dreads the little one's wriggles and cold feet. He finally relents when Little Mouse simply admits, "I'm lonely."

 

The chart today was contrasting quiet sounds....like the wind, waves, and birds....with loud, noisy sounds....like fireworks, thunder, and sirens.  The kids came up with lots of examples and then we listened to some of them on the iPad.

Science today was really cool.  Ms. Tiffany and I recorded each child saying "I love school" earlier in the day.  We all sat in a  big circle and tried to guess.....using only our ears....whose voice it was.  The kids were really good at this game.  And....you should have seen their faces when they recognized their own voice!! They were all so excited!  We talked about how boys voices are different than girls voices, and mommy voices are different than daddy voices.....just like fireworks sound different than cows.  Our ears help us figure out what things are and where they are coming from!

To end the day we attempted to play Simon Says.  We'll keep practicing.....our listening skills can't possibly need that much work!!  Either way....it ended in lots of laughter.....so we consider that at least a partial success!!

Smelly Smells!

Today started with Floam in the Touch and Feel.  It's super fun to play with....you can make shapes, letters, and numbers.....but it sure is messy to clean up!

Ms. Michele was here today with some fun things.  She had an obstacle course set up outside since the weather was finally cooperating!  There were balance beams to cross, a ladder to jump through, and balls to toss into a basket.  Once each child had done all that, they raced to the sidewalk to find the next letter of the alphabet puzzle.  After a few turns....and all the letters had been found.....we played Popcorn with the parachute.  The kids had fun bouncing the balls around.  And, of course, we had to all take a turn running under the parachute!

Today's book was What's That Awful Smell by Heather Tekavec.  This book ties in nicely with our introduction to the sense of SMELL.  The animals are all trying to relax in their barn when they notice a terrible smell.  Dog sniffs around and thinks the smell’s coming from Piglet. They try everything to get the smell off of him, but nothing seems to work! But is it really Piglet who smells, or is the mysterious smell coming from a place they least expect?

Our chart today was about things that we think smell good compared to things that smell icky....or stinky....or yucky!  The kids came up with some really good things to add to the list.  We talked about how all the good smells might smell "good", but they don't all smell the same.  And all of the stinky smells all smell different too.

Science helped us put our noses to the test!  Each child had a chart with 6 empty blocks.  They were all given 6 pictures of distinct smelling things.  The pictures were of cinnamon, vanilla ice cream, coffee, lemons, onions, and chocolate.  Then they took turns sniffing a mystery cup.  They had to decide which picture was in the cup.....based on smell only!  It was kinda hard at the beginning, but by the time we got to the ice cream and the chocolate.....everyone had the hang of it!

 

 For art, we used Jello paint to paint pictures of flowers.  Each color Jello had a different smell.  Purple smelled like grapes, green smelled like limes, and yellow smelled like lemonade.  The kids used the different colors, and Q-tip brushes, to make some beautiful.....and smelly.....flowers for our spring bulletin board.

Everybody is SAD Sometimes!

This morning the Touch and Feel was all about letters.  There were capital letters and lower case letters.....some kiddos even found some numbers mixed in!!  We named the letters we knew, made sounds, and tried really hard to think of words that start with the letters.  We matched the different colors and tried to spell our names.  So many fun things to do with letters!!

What beautiful weather for the playground!  We didn't even need jackets because it was so warm.....but....silly thing is....there are still piles of snow in the shade!  The kids are really ready for spring.  And, hopefully it will be here soon!

Our story today was Cheer Up, Mouse by Jed Henry.  In the book Mouse feels lower than low. His forest friends, including Badger, Hedgehog, Rabbit, and Mole all knock themselves out trying to cheer up the little guy, to no avail. In the end, all Mouse really needs is a hug!

For science today, we talked about things we do to hurt our friends feelings and make them sad.  We took two apples....just alike.....and did mean things to one apple and nice things to the other apple.  The kids hit the mean apple on the table and said things like "I don't like you" and "You can't play with us" to the apple.  We smiled at the nice apple, gave it hugs, and used nice, warm fuzzy words.  The apples looked the same.....but when we looked closer.....the apple we were mean to.....had started to cry.  There were wet spots on the table!!  And when we cut it open.....it was bruised from all our mean things!  We passed it back around and said things to try and make it feel better like "I'm sorry" and "I'll be your friend".  The kids were really engaged in this experiment.....they may never treat apples the same again!

For art, we took cut out letters and matched them to spell words.  The kids got to choose what words they wanted to spell.  Some choose "LOVE YOU", others choose "FRIENDS", and some choose "BE HAPPY".  They all did a really good job matching the letters in the right order to make words!

All About ANGRY.....

The Touch and Feel was full of Mr. Potato Head parts today.  The kids took turns making faces that were happy and sad and mad.  They even came up with scenarios and did some pretend play about emotions and feelings.

The playground was especially fun today as there were lots of puddles!  It's really hard not to jump in puddles.....they are SO tempting!!  We had to change some socks when we came inside, but it was well worth it!

Today's story was When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, ,Really Angry....by Molly Bang.  Everybody gets angry sometimes. People do lots of different things when they get angry. This book lets kids see what Sophie does when she gets angry. And....more importantly, what she does to help herself calm down.

After the book, we made a big chart about things that make us angry.  We talked about our friends not sharing, our brothers and sisters taking our toys, friends hitting us, and not being first in line.  Then we talked about what being ANGRY looks like.  Some people stomp their feet, others yell and cross their arms, some of our friends even fall on the floor and cry.  Even though everyone gets angry for different reasons, and it even looks different on different people.....we all feel the same way....just like Sophie.....like we are going to explode.

We headed outside for a wonderful science experiment to help the kiddos SEE what exploding looks like!  We took a two-liter soft drink, and pretended it was a person who was very angry......and when we added Mentos candy.....it exploded!  The kids loved it so much.....we did it twice.  Special shout out to Ms. Laura who was in charge of this super messy...but super cool....experiment!

We even practiced making some MAD, super ANGRY faces.....which sometimes look like silly, happy faces.....especially when you are having so much fun!!

Because we didn't want to leave the kiddos having just learned about getting angry, when we came inside, we spent an extra amount of time talking about calming down.  We even practiced some of them like counting to 10 and taking some deep breaths.  Ms. Laura had a calm jar filled with glitter.  Each child took a turn shaking the jar and talking about something that makes them mad.....and then showing one of the calm down techniques while the glitter settled.  When the glitter stops moving around.....we can't be mad anymore!!

NO SCHOOL!!

NO SCHOOL!!

NO SCHOOL!!

GERMS!!

We started the day at the Touch and Feel pool, which was filled with all different types of "germs".  The kids explored the pom pom germs and talked about some of the places we could find germs in our classrooms.  There were also some tissues in the pool so that they could experiment "catching" the germs....instead of spreading them!!

Ms. Michele came today with some really fun activities in preparation for the Winter Olympics that start on Thursday.  First, we used different colored scarves to dance around and warm up our bodies....just like the opening ceremonies that kick off the games.  Then, we began our real athletic training!  We walked along a balance beam and through a ladder....carefully following Ms. Michele's directions.  We walked the regular way, and jumped with two feet, jumped with one foot, walked sideways and backwards.....and crawled! It was hard work!  The last thing we did was to come up with different exercises on the floor.  The kids all gave directions on how they wanted their exercise done.  We laid on our backs and kicked our feet, laid on our tummies and swam like fish, we crawled around like snakes.....and several other fun yoga poses that the kids were much better at demonstrating than the adults!!

It was cold outside today, but we beat the rain to the playground!  The kids enjoyed running and playing with the Weekday friends.  The bikes and the climbing wall were a big hit!

Our book today was Germs! Germs! Germs! by Bobbi Katz.  This is a cute rhyming story all about germs and how they can make us sick.  It gives some good ideas about how to stay healthy and get rid of the germs before they get into our bodies.

We made a chart about all the healthy things that we can do to help keep us from getting sick.  Washing our hands, keeping our hands out of our mouths....and our pants....., eating fruits and vegetables, using our "cough catchers", and getting lots of sleep topped the list! 



After a demonstration about how germs spread when we sneeze....and don't use our cough catchers.....we put all the kids were all on Germ Patrol.  We don't want germs spreading around our classroom, so the kids are going to help each other remember all the things from our healthy list.  It amazing how well behaved children are when you charge them with monitoring OTHER children's behavior!!

For art, we put different colored germs all over our paper hands to help us remember that our hands our dirty.  We have to wash them with soap and water.....or use hand sanitizer....to get the germs off and make them clean again. 

I'm pretty sure that today's lesson was one of the most listened to lesson this year.  I hope that we didn't create any germ maniacs.....but.....more than that.....I hope I don't have to say "don't pick your nose" one more time....at least this week!!