Our Five Senses! (B, Circle)

Our theme this week was "Our Five Senses" and we focused on the letter B and the shape circle.

We read this week: Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
                               Paddington by Mark Brown
                               Paddington and the Busy Bee Carnival by Mark Brown
                               The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                               Stellaluna by Janelle Cannon

Our question of the week was "What is something that you are really good at?"

For our theme of the week, we talked a lot about our senses, what they help us do and why we need them.

We made texture collages:

 This week is full of some of my favorite activities from the year, these texture collages being one of them. I love how each one is different, and the kids are so proud of the texture choices that they make. AND they look amazing on the wall.

We tasted sweet, salty and sour things, and the kids had to vote on their favorite taste. (They think it's awesome when they get to eat things as part of a project.)

We tested their sense of smells with this project where I asked them to describe the things that they were smelling. I used perfume, shampoo, chocolate syrup, pickle juice, toothpaste and (the most tricky) water.

Out on our schools nature trail we talked about the different sounds that we could hear. We did this at various points of our walk, close to the school, by the parking lot and deeper in the woods.

Lastly we did another activity with the sense of touch. I set up my table with different texture objects. I used flour, rice, oatmeal, sand and a scrubbing sponge.

As the students felt each thing, I asked them to describe what they were feeling. It was hard to get them away from just telling them what the items were and to use describing words, but we got there in the end.

For our shape of the week, the kids practiced drawing circles with this cool worksheet of circles and another with squares and circles. We also worked on recognizing circles out of other shapes.

We talked a lot about things that are circles. We sang the song

"This is a circle, this is a circle.

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It goes round and round,

No end can be found, 

It's a circle, it's a circle."

-Found Here

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter B, the sheet that helps work on letter recognition, both were mentioned in the "All About Me" post. The students also wrote in their journals for the letter B.

We turned B's into Bees!

After we read Ferdinand we all made our own bees. This was a great way for the kids to practice their cutting skills.

I love how each child's bee is different.

Another project that we did (another one of my favorites all year) is the Boat Builder activity. I love it because I give the students the materials and the end result is something completely their own. 

Each child got a piece of white paper, a square of brown paper, a skinny black rectangle, scissors, a glue stick and crayons with the instruction of make me a boat however you want to. (They love when I say that). If I get "I don't know how..." or " I can't do it.." We go back a few steps and talk about boats.. what do they look like, where do we find them, what do they do, and then the creative juices start flowing. Here's the end results!

Love it!

For our Alphabet wall we made butterflies with coffee filters and water color paint. After the children painted their coffee filters and they dried I used small pipe cleaners to turn them into butterflies!

And with the B addition, our wall now looks like...

Our list for words beginning with B's was very impressive. Here it is!

As a side note, teachers always need to be flexible, and as such, it was in the best interest of the flow of the classroom to switch two centers, the library and dramatic play center.

And I'm always telling the kids to make sure that they turn off the water faucet after getting a drink or washing their hands. I tell them to "Save the water for the fishes, so I painted a mural for above the sink to remind them.

Up next week: The letter C, Triangles and "Our Feelings".