To start, I went over our mobile classroom items of the week (Color: Orange [like the fruit because you can touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it (you can kind of hear yourself peeling it!), and see it]; Shape: Sphere [like an orange]; Letter: G; Number: 5 [of course!]. I made the sphere shape card using Canva and clipart. Our concept of the week was sorting. 

Then we started circle time:

Song: Days of the Week (to the tune of The Addams Family)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
There’s Sunday and there’s Monday,
There’s Tuesday and there’s Wednesday,
There’s Thursday and there’s Friday,
And then there’s Saturday.
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
Source: Ms. Brown’s Classroom

We looked at our calendar and discussed what day of the week it was, what month we were in, and what day of the month it was. Then we moved on to the weather:

Song: What’s the Weather? (to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine)
What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it sunny? Is it windy?
Is it rainy? Is it cold?

What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it snowy? Is it cloudy?
Is it stormy? Is it hot?
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/460563499387764713/

Then it was time for our theme discussion. 

Non-Fiction Book: Taste, Touch, See, Smell, and Listen: Learning About Your Five Senses by Pam Hill Nettleton; illustrated by Becky Shipe

A perfect read aloud for preschoolers about the five senses.

I didn’t read a fiction book this week. Instead I was going to show them a PBS video of using your five senses at the beach. However, the computer and the projector had an argument and wouldn’t project the video onto the screen. So we skipped it.

Then we talked about the letter of the week. We talked about the sound G makes and some words that start with G.

Then I read our letter G book: Little Apple Goat by Caroline Jayne Church.

This book was perfect because the goat loves to eat fruit so there was a five senses element as well! I’ve read this book to a few different groups and the kids always need a little help understanding the ending. 

Then we did our letter G craft. I found the idea for this craft on Miss Maren’s Monkeys. I’m trying to keep the alphabet craft consistent with our letter-of-the-week book. Isn’t he cute?

When we were done with our craft, we conducted a sound experiment. I found the idea at Cool Science Experiments Headquarters. I bought in the bowl, spoon, and baking sheet from home. I let each kid take a turn banging the spoon to make the rice move. I also explained how invisible sound waves were moving the rice. They weren’t super impressed. 🙂 I think they liked our Skittles rainbow experiment from last week more. (It was pretty awesome.)

Then I reviewed the different stations I had set up. I made all the signs in Canva.

I filled the tray with a mix of salt and sugar and lined it with an image from Canva:

The grapes came from a packet of food from Dollar Tree. The gold coin was leftover from our St. Patrick’s Day program last week. I found the ghost eraser in the library’s supply closet. The giraffe, gorilla, and grizzly bear came from the Safari and North American TOOBs. The foam letters came from puzzles I found at Dollar Tree. I created the tub labels in Canva.

I made scented orange play-doh this week! I mixed a packet of orange Kool-Aid into the water this week instead of food coloring. The color was great but I didn’t find the scent to be overwhelmingly orange. I’ll try using two packets next time or maybe add some orange extract to really punch the scent up. I got the alphabet and counting mats from Oriental Trading. The number five mat matched our Gg mat this week which was a nice surprise!

I found this free printable at The STEM Laboratory. I printed it out on card stock and laminated it. Easy peasy! You can see the answer key at the top right of the table. This was a little tough because a lot of the images applied to more than one sense but that caused the kids to think carefully about each image and what sense(s) it could be applied to.

This was so much fun. I got the idea and the worksheet from Khrys Greco at Teachers Pay Teachers. The kids worked their way through pretzels (salty), Hershey’s Kisses (sweet), lemon slices (sour), and baker’s chocolate (bitter). Then they recorded whether or not they liked each taste. I almost felt a little bad about the baking chocolate (it’s horrible!) but that was part of the experiment!

I got the idea for our shaky eggs from Play to Learn Preschool. I bought the eggs at Five Below and added masking tape to make sure they stayed in one piece with all the shaking! I created the worksheet and Answer Key in Canva.

I got this idea from Deceptively Educational. I gathered a bunch of stuff around the library and from my alphabet bins that I thought would be fun for the kids. Even though we provided the blindfold (an eye mask from Dollar Tree!) we had a LOT of peekers! I wanted the kids to reach their hands INTO the bag, not pull out the object. Oh well!

I created the worksheet and answer key in Canva. I wanted to give kids who couldn’t write yet a place to draw what they thought might be in the bag. 

I thought these were so much fun. I got the idea from Lagarta Vira Pupa. I covered each pill bottle with construction paper so the kids couldn’t peek. I filled the bottles with coffee grounds; lemon extract; vanilla extract; cinnamon; orange juice and peel; crushed garlic cloves; fresh bubble gum; and chopped up onion. The kids could match each bottle to what they thought the scent was and check their guesses with the answer key.

I created the answer key and images in Canva and with clipart.

Our session summary:

I also handed out a letter/number of the week worksheet for them to color at home and practice their writing. I got the letter worksheet from Easy Peasy Learners and the number worksheet from Tot Schooling. As an at-home learning activity I suggested they take a nature walk and use their five senses. I found a great worksheet at Teachers Pay Teachers for the kids to fill out when they got home. And lastly as homework I sent home a five senses popcorn observation book from I Heart Crafty Things.