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Friday, March 4, 2011

Using the 5 Senses Around the Garden!


As Ethan stated below, we focused on the different types of soil (clay, silt, and sand) this week. More specifically, we wanted the children to use their 5 senses to learn about the differences. Our little scientists were willing and ready to use their 5 senses, especially, when they realized "taste" would be involved....
My group started out with sight. We used our magnifying glasses to really get us in 'scientist' mode' and we focused on the little details of the different soils and of different plants. We also used our sight to explore this wonderful flower (pictured up top to the right). One of the 4th graders in my group was able to tell me that this flower meant a squash was coming, and when the flower died we would be ready to eat a squash! Of course he mentioned that we would have to share it with everyone :)

Our taste and touch senses were used on the 3 types of soil and than we brought our senses into the garden to touch the spinach and the dill. The spinach is growing so incredibly well in the garden and with Sarah Tucker making spinach pizza, I can only imagine that it's going to be a lot of children's new favorite vegetable! I had the children describe to me what they felt were the differences between the skinny dill leaves and the thicker spinach leaves.

Even my kindergartners were using very descriptive words! For our hearing sense, I
had my group sit far away from the others and we closed our eyes and became active listeners. We heard birds, trucks, people talking, and one of my group members specifically heard a generator.

The final sense we experienced was "smell". First we smelled each different soil and talked about the differences, realizing the sand kind of smelled like salt, the silt smelled a little bit more like the garden and the clay was the soil that we had a hard time describing because it smelled "grosser" than silt from my students perspective! We went into the garden to use this sense, and I chose the dill for my students to smell.

This was a great week in the garden! Can't wait for next weeks compositing lesson!

Jamie P.
An Independent Study Lady

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