Pre-K Use Their Senses!

Pre-K is discovering that they use their senses every day!  A lot of the time, they are using more than one sense! Over the past month, we have explored our sense of taste, smell and hearing.  

Oh how everyone loved taking the apple taste test!  We were seeing which color apple tasted the best.  The Pre-k classes realized that when they were tasting the apples, they also touched the apple (it was smooth) and smelled the apple (it smelled good).

Then we drew a picture of the apple that tested the best to us.

And then placed the apple picture on the graph.  Sometimes it was hard to choose which color tasted the best....so all three were chosen!

Looks like red tastes best for this class!

The mystery hearing jars were fun and a little tricky!  Shake the jar and match and the sound to the picture!

 The mystery smelling jars were delicious smelling!  Well, all of the jars smelled good except for the pepper!  That was spicy!

Everyone wants to do another taste test!  What would we taste? Pears and chocolate were some suggestions!

Tasty Grasshoppers!

Who knew grasshoppers could be so tasty!?  Yes, you read this correctly!  1st grade has been learning all about insects over the past few months, in fact, they have become experts!  Every year, at least one person in each class will mention that they have eaten an insect or know someone who has.  This always leads to a lively discussion about how people in many countries eat insects as a part of their diet.  Insects are nutritious, full of protein, easy to raise and less demanding of our natural resources.  Coincidentally, on my newsfeed, up pops a story about the Seattle Mariners baseball stadium selling grasshoppers or chapulines!  

Here is a link to the story  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-sSw1jOqB0&feature=youtu.be

I wrote to Poquitos wondering if they would send some grasshoppers for our first graders to try!  Liz, the general manager, couldn't have been nicer!   They donated enough chapulines for everyone to try one or two!  They are definitely on the spicy side because of the chili, but I was and am so impressed with how many 6 year olds tried the grasshoppers!  And, they really are very tasty!  I have some left over if anyone wants to stop by my room to try some!

The cryovaced grasshoppers arrive!

Here they are!

 

What an incredible experience!  Many of the students tried the grasshoppers and quite a few had more than one!  The way Poquitos grilled them....they were delicious: crunchy, salty, spicy with a bit of lime!

2nd Grade Sorts River Rocks!

2nd graders have been investigating river rocks!  They began by observing and sorting the rocks by properties: color, shape, size, luster and texture. We were surprised at how most of the rocks were more than one color and many of them had patterns. 

We discovered that most of the river rocks were smooth, sparkly and had more than one color.

The next class we sorted the river rocks by properties again and put each sorted group into water to see if the rocks would change in any way.

We were so surprised that the dull rocks turned shiny and the shiny rocks turned dull when they were put in water.  And the river rocks changed color when they were wet. Some even turned green!