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.