Learning With Our Senses

11/29/2017

Children use their senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. They do this by touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, moving and hearing.

We love to provide opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world. ‘Sensory play’ is crucial to brain development – it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways.

This leads to a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem solving skills.

Sit Spots!

To start off our unit on the senses we searched out our first Sit Spots. We first learned about Sit Spots from Earth Native Wilderness School - and if you haven't had a chance yet to check out Earth Native - you must! They have amazing camps, preschool programs, workshops and more!

In our Sit Spots we focused on our senses and discussed all the different sensations we experienced.

We listened to all the sounds around us and heard:

"crickets"
"squirrels"
"church bells"
"my breath"

With our eyes closed we touched our surroundings and felt:

"leaves"
"something tickly"
"sticky grass"

With our eyes closed we smelled our surroundings and smelled:

"popcorn"
"leaves"
"air"

With our eyes open we focused on what we could see:

"my friends"
"clouds"
"magic tree"

We focused on what we could taste in the air and had some surprising responses:

"ice cream"
"popcorn"
"just air"

Our Sensory Garden!

We planted a garden for each of the 5 basic senses!

The kids digged their own holes with a spoon and learned how to gently loosen the roots of the baby plant before planting.

In our Scent Garden, as it is pretty shady, we planted many different varieties of mint:

Chocolate mint
Orange mint
Pineapple mint
Grapefruit mint
Spearmint
Peppermint

In our Taste Garden we planted many different seasonal herbs:

Dill
Fennel (fun taste test to do with the dill as they look so similar)
Parsley
Cilantro
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
Sage
Lemon Balm
Chervil

In our Listening Garden we planted grasses and plants with crispy leaves that make interesting sounds. Adding windchimes and windmills enhance the listening quality of the garden.

In our Touch Garden we planted a variety of plants with soft leaves, interesting textures, and rubbery succulents.

In our Sight Garden we planted edible flowers with all the colors of the rainbow!

Sensory Learning with Herbs!

Herbs add a wonderful aspect to sensory learning - their scents, textures, colors and tastes invite a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity from young learners!

We gathered fresh herbs to make a Relaxing Sunset Tea and Fresh Herbal Salts.

Relaxing Sunset Tea

Add 1 tsp each of dried rosehips, chamomile, peppermint, orange peel, rose petals, hibiscus, and lemon balm in each jar.
Add 1 small pinch of dried stevia to each jar.
Cover with 2 cups of spring or filtered water.
Set in the gentle rays of the setting sun for 1 hour.

Rolling the lemon balm leaves in your hands helps to release the fresh calming aroma. Lemon Balm is a lovely herb to use with children and really easy to grow!

Kids love using hibiscus too as the swirly pink quickly colors the water!

Salt Preserved Herbs

De-stem 15 to 20 stems of garden herbs - we used oregano, rosemary, thyme, and winter savory.
Coarsley chop herbs.
Add chopped herbs to 2/3 cup sea salt and briefly grind in a suribachi or mortar and pestle.

Using salt to preserve herbs is a tried and true method that dates back centuries. The fresh herbs permeate every ounce of the salt mixture that releases and preserves the garden harvest.

We funneled our mixture into amber glass bottles and made our own label designs! The herbal salts will keep fresh in the fridge for up to a year.

We learned more about the relaxing properties and sweet scent of lemon balm with these fun coloring pages from the Herb Fairies.

Melissa officinalis is the scientific name for lemon balm!

Spice Scented Playdough

First, we explored the different scents, tastes, textures, and qualities and then matched the original plant to the powdered form.

2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup of spice - cinnamon, turmeric, and paprika
1 cup salt
1 tbs oil
1 cup cold water

Combine the flour, spices, and salt and mix well. Then add the oil and water. Mix and knead until well blended. Add more water and oil if too dry, more flour if too wet.

The Many Benefits of Sensory Play!

Check out Creative Sense for a great resource for sensory materials and ideas.

Mud Pies!

Oh the wonders and fun of mud play! The kids loved getting messy and decorating their personal pies with shells, flowers, and leaves.

"Scientists have now confirmed something that children have always instinctively known; playing in mud is a joyful experience. Recent research has shown that dirt contains microscopic bacteria called Mycobacterium Vaccae which stimulates the immune system and increases the levels of serotonin in our brains, an endorphin that soothes, calms, and helps us to relax. Scientists say regular exposure to the bacteria may help reduce a child’s vulnerability to depression. In short, playing in mud makes you happier!

Mud is also an excellent medium for learning. The same release of serotonin that occurs when playing in Mycobacterium Vaccaedirt has also been shown to improve cognitive function. And the rich, engaging sensory play children partake in while playing with mud allows them to express their creativity while enhancing their fine motor skills. Children practice social skills such as cooperation, negotiation, communication, and sharing as they work together. Emergent math and science skills are practiced as children make before and after comparisons, solve problems, test theories, and measure and count ingredients for their mud pies. This is the scientific process in action!

Mud is a wonderful art medium, it is in ample supply, can be easily molded to create endless sculptures, and responds differently than clay or play dough. The open-ended nature of mud encourages creative thinking and allows children to freely create without fear of making mistakes. This also contributes to a child’s sense of self, helping to build a strong inner sense of competency.

Mud play is inclusive of all children. It allows children to play at their own developmental level. Mud is an open ended material that meets the diverse needs and interests of different children. Younger or less skilled children might focus on the sensory experience whereas older children may have more specific goals in mind for their mud play. Allow children to explore the mud at their own comfort level. With mud, there is something for everyone and there are no wrong answers.

Playing in the mud inspires children to feel a connection to nature and develop an appreciation for the environment. Many children today have limited opportunities to play outdoors and it is difficult to care about the environment if you have not had the chance to spend time in nature. By providing time outdoors and the chance for muddy, messy play, you facilitate a love of the earth."

Community Playthings

Need a quick sensory play activity to keep your little one busy and happy?

Shaving foam with food coloring is so much fun!

Corn Meal is another wonderful, abundant medium that kids love to feel and play in. Cooking dinner and want to keep your 'helper' occupied? Put out a large roasting dish of corn meal to play with!

For this activity the kids were blindfolded as they searched for hidden treasures with their fingers and tried to identify what they found through touch alone.

Moon Sand!

This is a fun recipe that is easy to whip up and highly entertaining!

Mix together:

2 cups of sugar
2 cups of corn flour
10 tablespoons olive oil

Mad Matter!

This is a special type of kinetic sand that really holds it's shape when molded together and then efortlessly turns back into loose sand again - fascinating stuff!

"This is a blue bee swimming until he gets sucked into a volcano!"

Sand Box Play!

Good ol' fashioned sand is such a great sensory experience for kids as they explore their sense of touch and play and discover with the wonderful texture of sand!

Texture Collage!

Finger Painting!

Painting with Tea Bags!

Easy Tie Dyed Socks!

These would make such cool holiday gifts! Simply use different colors of sharpies on white socks. Then blend the colors with drops of alcohol.

Colorful Potions!

Awesome ingredients for a potion table:

food coloring
baking soda
vinegar
dishwashing soap
hydrogen peroxide
yeast
glitter

Color Hunt!

We went hunting for colorful leaves and flowers and created pretty pieces for the nature table.

Carrot Taste Test!

Which carrots taste better to you? Orange, yellow, magenta, or white?

Thumbs up! Orange carrots are the winner!

Sewing Leaves!

We loved this simple Fall activity! Such a fun way to introduce sewing techniques. Their focus was amazing!

Painting to Music!

"Before you start, examine the front cover illustration of 'Duke Ellington - The Piano Prince and His Orchestra' by Andrea Davis Pinkney. See if your child can guess what the green swirls are. After you have finished the story, look at the cover illustration again and discuss it. Look through the book for other pictures showing the different colors of music. Then set out a variety of paint colors for your child to use and play Masterpieces by Ellington: “Sophisticated Lady” in the background while you paint on one half of the page.

Next listen to Masterpieces by Ellington: “Mood Indigo”. Without telling your child the title of the piece, ask what colors he hears when he listens to the music. If you like, you can tell him the title and explain that indigo is a blue color. Get out the colors for today’s painting as directed by your child, and have him paint a picture while listening to the piece again on the other half of the paper."

Waldorf Curriculum - an awesome free resource!

Compare how the 2 pieces of music and art are different!

Can You Find Your Lemon?

Each child picked out a lemon and examined it carefully for distinguishing features and then put it back in the bowl.

Try to find your lemon by looking for the bumps, ridges and colors you noticed before. The kids were great at actually finding their original lemon!

Blending Colors with Q-tips!

Edible, Smellable, Paint!

These edible paints made by GLOB actually smell and taste like the plants they are made from!

Pumpkin Pitch!

We explored rhythms and tried out different utensils as drumming tools to compare the difference in sounds.

DIY Music Shakers!

So fun to create these shakers with toliet paper tubes, neon paint, glitter washi tape, stickers, and markers.

A teacher secretly put rice, almonds, small rocks, and navy beans into two shakers for each item - then secured the shakers with penguin duct tape.

Sound shakers are an amazingly fun and fairly simple Montessori material from the Sensorial Area of the classroom that helps children hone their Auditory Senses.

Exploring Sound With Different Instruments

Garden Gratitude Yoga!

In addition to our five familiar senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, we have two additional "inner" senses. These two senses are called vestibular (inner ear/balance) and proprioception (joints/heavy work). The sensory benefits of yoga for kids is impressive!

In November we like to put an extra focus on gratitude. In Yoga class we did poses of things in nature that we are grateful for.

Laughing Butterflies!

Benefits: This pose is a great warm up to the other poses and helps devolop core strength, flexibility, and posture while providing some gentle proprioceptive input.

Chirping Crickets!

Benefits: Whenever the head is inverted, the vestibular system gets a rush of input. Many kids crave this. The extra weight placed on the arms is great proprioceptive input, helping kids be more aware of their bodies.

Growing Trees!

Benefits: Balance is key with this pose. This makes the vestibular system kick it up a notch. The inner ear has to work hard to keep the body upright.

Jumping Frogs!

Benefits: This move helps with coordination, leg strength, and a deep pressure (proprioceptive input) into the legs.

Blooming Flowers!

Benefits: This is a great pose for the core. There’s also the added benefit of all the proprioceptive pressure on the back while they roll out of the pose.

Here's a great resource to practice some of these poses at home!

Gratitude Journals!

Cultivating gratitude has been shown to help increase children’s happiness and self-esteem, while also improving their relationships with others.

Continue the learning at home by creating a gratitude journal with your child. Journaling is a great way for children to express creatively, self reflect, practice fine motor skills, and develop an appreciation for the people and things in their lives. Below are some tips for getting started.

1. Create the journal
Bind together different colors of construction paper. Encourage your child to decorate a cover for the journal using markers, crayons, stickers or photographs. On each blank page of the notebook, write “I am grateful for” at the top. We tried to leave several blank pages for you to continue the process at home.

2. Integrate journaling into your child’s routine
Determine the best 5-10 minutes each day for your family to sit down and journal without interruptions. Have your child draw, write or describe to you items that he is grateful for. Consistency is key for developing a habit, so try to follow the same sequence of events each day (i.e. dinner time, journal time, bath time, bed time).

3. Give prompts if needed
Expressing gratitude might not come easily at first for your child and that’s okay. Prompt him by asking questions, such as “Who is a family member or friend you are grateful for and why?”, “What is one thing you enjoyed doing today?” or “What is one of your favorite toys?” Ask your child to draw a picture and if age appropriate, write a few words describing the drawing. Model positive behavior by sharing your own moment of gratitude for the day.

4. Set small goals
Set a short term goal with your child, such as journalling each day in November. At the end of the month, remind your child of the fun they had by reviewing the entries together. You might be surprised to learn that your child wants to continue using the gratitude journal! If so, brainstorm a new goal and create a new journal if necessary.

Carrington