Co-op Science: Senses

I teach preschool-1st grade science classes a couple of times a month through a local co-op group. My first class was all about our 5 senses!

We started off with a group activity where we ate popcorn and practiced using describing words to talk about what we were experiencing with our senses.

After the group activity, the kids took turns experimenting with the "stations" I had set up for each sense. 

Taste

I had 4 cups with various substances: unsweetened cocoa powder, lemon juice, sugar, and salt.
They had to taste each once and decide if they were bitter, salty, sweet, or sour.

Smell

I had six baby food jars w/ a cottonball dipped in various substances: cinnamon, lemon juice, vanilla extract, almond extract, peppermint extract, and orange extract.  They had to try to identify what was in each jar just by smelling.

Hearing

I had a dozen plastic eggs filled with 6 different items so that each item had a match.  They were beans, rice, a coin, nothing, lentils, and a bottle top.

Touch

Balloons filled with different things to match simply be feeling (sand, water, beans, rice, lentils).

Sight

A magnifying glass with interesting items to look at.  They each had a journal to write/draw about their observations.

It was a great class!  Thanks for reading!

I'm linking up!

Feast of St. Francis

I LOVE the Feast of St. Francis.  His love of animals makes him so accesible and kid friendly, while his attitude towards showing love through action is something that really helps them understand what it means to live the Gospel.

To start the day with, we watched this really cute video that the kids loved:


We didn't get to much else, but at our Catholic homeschooling co-op that afternoon, they learned more about him and made some really cute bird feeders made out of bagels to help care for our friendly front yard friends.

I found some really neat resources in planning some fun ideas for next year:
10 Ideas for Bringing St. Francis to the Classroom
St. Francis and the Blessing of Animals
Celebrating St. Francis of Assisi with Young Ones
St. Francis of Assisi Notebooking Page

Thanks for reading!