TITLE: All About Me: My Senses
AUTHOR: Mary L. Nisewander; London Elementary, OR
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: Kindergarten
Science, Health, Math, and Language Arts
OVERVIEW:
The primary focus of these lessons are on young children as individuals,
and how they respond to the stimuli in their world around them.
The first unit discusses the senses, It introduces the parts of the body
that are sense organs and develops the concept that using the senses helps
people learn about the world around them.
The second unit is health oriented and is designed to help young children
understand their bodies by discussing body parts and movement, how to care
for their bodies, and how their bodies grow. It also incorporates a lesson
on understanding emotions, which encourages students to learn to share
their feelings appropriately.
NOTE: ONLY LESSON ONE FROM UNIT ONE WILL BE PRESENTED.
PURPOSE
The unit will provide meaningful, literature-based experiences which
assist the students to develop, practice, and apply critical thinking
process skills. The students are given the opportunity to use, practice,
and apply those processes which are most compatible with their
appropriate developmental level. The following basic process skills are
presented in experiences which facilitate the childrens' advancement
toward higher levels of cognitive maturation, therefore towards more
advanced thinking patterns.
Basic Process Skills:
Observing
Classifying
Inferring
Communicating
Measuring
Using Numbers
OBJECTIVES:
All About Me: My Senses
Lesson 1: My Senses
Identify parts of the body that are senses.
Describe what each sense allows the body to do.
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
VOCABULARY: senses, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, hands. skin.
TIME FRAME: 15 - 30 minutes per lesson.
NOTE: There are a total of 5 lessons for this unit
GROUP SIZE: Whole class and small group.
When the students are not in the room, place a hot air popcorn popper
filled with popcorn on a low table covered with a box. Students will sit on
the floor in front of the table. Plug in the popcorn popper.
ASK: How can we find out what is under this mystery box?
DISCUSS: Using their senses helps to learn about unknown things.
Remove the box for the students to see what is underneath. Give each
student a sample of the popcorn.
ASK: What does the popcorn feel like? What does popcorn taste like? What
sound is made when you eat popcorn?
Shared Reading: Tomie de Paola, The Popcorn Book
CLOSURE: Review the senses used to experience the making of popcorn.
MATERIALS:
Hot air popcorn popper
Large clean box to cover popper
Low table or clean sheet for floor
Napkins/cups for popcorn
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES
ONE: Make more popcorn for the students. Have the students estimate
how many kernels it will take to pop for one container full. Record this
student information onto chart paper. Have the students assist in counting
out the kernels with portion cups in sets of 10. When finished have the
whole group count the sets by 10's. Write the numeral on the chart paper,
explaining which numeral represents which group/sets of portion cups -
hundreds, tens, ones. Pop the popcorn.
TWO: Put a vegetable or fruit in a small bag or clean sock. Have the
students sit in a circle. Have the students guess what is in the sock
without looking inside. Pass the sock around and ask the students to shake
and listen to it. Pass the sock around a second time and ask them to smell
it. The third time around, ask the students to feel the object. Students
should now be able to guess what the sock contains. The final pass around,
let each student peek in. Discuss the contents of the sock and how they
learned what was in it. Prepare a tray of different fruit and vegetables
for students to taste.
CHALLENGE: Encourage students to use their senses to sort some fruits
and/or vegetables into groups. Students will discuss and share which
senses they are utilizing during this activity. Write on chart paper the
students responses. They may classify by color, smell, or taste.
MATERIALS NEEDED
Hot air popcorn popper
Portion cups
Napkins/cups for popcorn
Trays of various fruits and vegetables
Several clean trays for classifying
Chart Paper
Marker
Clean sock or small bag
RESOURCES
References:
All About Me, Wendy Pfeffer - First Teacher Press
Free to Be ...You And Me, Marlo Thomas et al - Bantam Books
Your Body, Linda Schwartz - The Learning Works, Inc.
Our Bodies, Sharon Wheeler - Creative Teaching Press, Inc.
Learning About My Body, JoEllen Moore and Joy Evans, Evan-Moor Corp.
Shared Reading:
Sarah Garland, Having A Picnic
Tana Hoban, Is It Larger? Is It Smaller?
Suzy Kline, Don't Touch
Leo Lionni, A Color Of His Own
Jose Aruego, We Hide, You Seek
Marc Brown, Aurthur's Eyes
Rosemary Wells, Benjamin & Tulip
CLASSROOM CENTERS
Bulletin Board
Goal: To provide individual students with the opportunity to show an
understanding of the parts of the body that help them sense their world.
Materials:
Construction paper
Yarn
Glue
Scissors
Pictures of objects/living things
Procedure: Make a large head picture of the childrens' favorite person or
character out of construction paper. Make the features exaggerated. Mount
pictures of objects or living things that exemplify using a specific sense.
Attach one end of a piece of yarn to each picture. Ask the students to
attach the other end of the yarn to a sense used to learn about each object.
Science Center
Goal: To develop the senses.
Materials: Tape recorder
Tape with book
Headphones
Blank tape
6 pairs of empty film canisters
6 pairs of different colored blank self-adhesive dots
Feely/mystery box
6 pairs of small objects
Tray of fruit/vegetables
Mirror
Hand lenses
Tripod magnifying lense
Rocks
Plants
Nature objects
Procedure: Make five mini-centers for children to explore their 5 senses.
Hearing Center: Listening to a story tape with or without storybook. Make
their own tape recording reading the storybook, then listening to their
tape recording.
Touching Center: Students try an guess what each object is in the "feely
box". Next, through their sense of touch, match each object with their
twin.
Seeing Center: Look at theirself in a mirror and draw a picture of what
they see. View various rocks, plants, objects at the center or classroom
with a hand lense, or tripod magnifying lense.
Smelling Center: Through their sense of smell, match each spice with
their twin. Checking their work by closing the lid tightly and matching
the colored dots on the bottom of each film canister.
Tasting Center: Students will taste various fruits and vegetables, and
describe to a friend how each food tastes or tastes like.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
Activity: Take the students on a field trip of the school. Go past the
offices, near the cafeteria before lunch, and around the outside of the
building. Stop at each place.
ASK: What do you SEE here? What do you SMELL here? How would the _______
TASTE? If you close your eyes, what do you HEAR here? Go TOUCH the___
____, how does it FEEL?
Field Trip Ideas: Visit an optometrist's office. Ask the optometrist to
discuss the eye parts/functions, why eye examinations are important, and
proper eye care/protection.
Speakers/Visitors: Invite a person who knows sign language to visit the
class and share with students why some people use this type of
communication.
HELPFUL HINTS: Curriculum Integration
Language Arts
Using adjectives have the students describe an experience or event.
Encourage use of multiple adjectives in their descriptions. List their
experiences on chart paper and ask the students to name which sense
would help them to identify what is happening in each situation. List the
senses on the chart paper.
Art
Students will make kaleidoscopes. Using a warm iron and a pressing
cloth, melt crayon shavings between two large sheets of waxed paper. Cut
out circles that will overlap one end of a toilet paper tube. Secure the
circles with tape.
Click here to return to OFCN's Academy Curricular Exchange
Click here to return to OFCN's Academy
Click here to return to OFCN's Main Menu
John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org