During the second half of April and the first week of May we focused on 3 topics which were interlinked; our bodies, senses and emotions. We looked at many books about our bodies and the children were curious and asked lots of questions. We drew an outline of Giorgio’s body and used flashcards to name body parts, indicating where they belong. The children painted self-portraits after looking at their features in the mirror.
Our Bodies
We also talked about how our bodies work, what we can do with the different parts of our bodies and the importance of healthy eating, exercise and rest. The children were excited to see their shadows outdoors and moved their body parts in different ways. They role-played doctors, taking care of each other and the dolls. During cooking lab we made gingerbread people biscuits and for math we counted body parts, circling the correct number.
Our Senses
The children participated enthusiastically in all activities we explored about the 5 senses; we played a game where certain objects and images had to be sorted for each of the senses. For the sense of touch we painted with our hands, manipulated das, made sensorial letters with cornflour, painted with coloured ice cubes and with aluminium foil. We had fun with the feely bag and feely box where children had to touch an object and try to guess what it was.
We painted our feet different colours (which was tickly) and walked on paper which made a nice big display for the class. On a sunny morning we went on a ‘sensorial walk’ which was very very fun; we walked on cornflour, pebbles, pompoms and cotton wool, slimy and slippery spaghetti and cold water to wash our feet; the children loved this activity (especially the slimy spaghetti).
For the sense of sight, we observed many things within the school grounds and used magnifying glasses to get a closer look at the insects and creepy crawlies. The children thoroughly enjoyed using the digital camera to take photographs around the school of things they liked or interested them; it was very interesting to ‘see’ things from their perspective.
Sense of hearing- we heard many things while walking outside such as aeroplanes, helicopters, the lawn mower, birds chirping and children playing. In class we explored a variety of musical instruments and even made our own shakers in transparent containers filled with rice or lentils or small pasta or beads. The following link is the ‘5 senses’ song which we practised daily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXXiyIGqliE&ab_channel=TheKiboomers-KidsMusicChannel
Senses of taste and smell – During morning snack we explored lots of foods using our senses of small and taste and made yummy fruit skewers during cooking lab. We also smelled the flowers and leaves outside and enjoyed the yummy smells coming from the kitchen!
Our Emotions
Below is the link for the ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ song book;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hqRT9U0wg&ab_channel=BarefootBooks
In class we often talk about our feelings and emotions as well as about friendship and helping others. We read the wonderful book about the colour monster, sorting the emotions faces into the correct coloured jars and made our own colour monster puppets.
The children were able to understand, identify and produce different emotions such as being happy, sad, scared, surprised and calm, and states of being such as being sleepy/tired, thirsty and hungry. We made happy faces with rice cakes and fruit and each child made a friendship bracelet for a classmate; the children were very considerate and asked their friend which colour/s of beads they would like. Finally we talked about our Families and made beautiful photo frames for Mother’s Day.
We hope you enjoy our class blog!
Ms. Catriona, Giorgio, Giulio, Lea, Mati, Mila, Tommaso & Valeria