January 26-30, 2015

This is it! This week we wrapped up our discussion on five senses. Senses of smell and taste were the last two senses discussed. The kids enjoyed this last week of five senses unit due to the food involvement. This week also a wrap up week of Pre-K 3 and 4 combined class. Ms. Connie has arrived safe and sound here in Balikpapan. Parents of Pre-K 3 class, I can't thank you all enough for your support and understanding in the last three weeks. 

We started the sense of smell and taste by doing smell and taste test. Blindfolded, the kids were asked to guess the food that they smelled and tasted. They were so good in guessing the sweet, salty, sour, bitter and a little bit spicy food. 

The math skills that learnt this week were pattern and sorting. The kids did taste pattern and they also sorted the 6 different fruits into the correspondent bowls.

The kids busy hands created so many art and craft products this week. All of the projects involved their sense of smell. They painted the picture of flower with spices. We used 6 different spices powder such as chili, tumeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and curry. The second painting project was painting using tea leaves. We chose two different types of tea, green and black tea. The kids loved the fresh smell of the tea after we poured the hot water to the tea. The last project that they did was making their own fruity scented play dough. Together with Pre-K 4 students, they mixed all the ingredients needed to make the play dough. Afterwards, they individually the fruit essence that they like. Vanilla essence was the most popular choice of the day.

Training their fine motor and cutting skills, the kids were asked to cut zigzag lined food pictures. They did it flawlessly.

As part of our Friday morning routine, we usually do the nature walk. This Friday we walked around the ridge to smell the flowers and plants we found along the way. We also played Follow the Lemon  game. The students were paired up, one student was chosen as the blindfolded person and the other one was chosen as the person who held the lemon. The person who held the lemon had to hold the lemon closer to the blindfolded person's nose. Then he or she moved quietly and the blindfolded person had to follow them by finding the smell of the lemon. It was a fun game to do. The kids enjoyed playing this game.

The idea of having fresh orange juice at lunch time was cheered by the kids. Enthusiastically, they use their muscles, fine motor skill, and good teamwork to squeeze the oranges. They kept saying about how they love the fresh smell of the oranges, but when they finally had their cups of orange juice, they loved it even better.

We closed our five senses unit by doing marshmallow observation and completing our five senses graph.