We worked on Our Body and Five Senses for over 2 months. I wasn’t quite sure how much the tots can understand and absorb. So I simply cruised along with them.
For a start, I was only planning to cover the visible parts of our body. But when they started to talk about my bones (due to my chronic back pain), I realised that they actually have some understanding of our internal body.
So we broadly went into our digestive system, using books with simple and adorable illustrations.
We subsequently explored our 5 senses which I thought was a little abstract. So I purchased some teacher materials to help me with the learning process.
Sharing our learning experience here.
Our Body
We did a lot more reading as compared to the previous themes. The homeschool teacher, yours truly, found it a little challenging to create pieces of craft relating to our body parts.
These are the more decent looking crafts we did.
We incorporated songs “If you are happy”, as well as counting little fingers into our learning.
Below is derived from a template downloaded from Pinterest. Something similar in the link here.
We drew our silhouettes on super long pieces of paper which kept them amused for a pretty long while.
Below is their favourite pasting project. Instead of instructing the tots step by step, I made an example for them to follow.
It was an excellent session of focus. One of the girls glued many of the features independently and learned to take time to compare and adjust the final details.
Senses
We did a lot more kinesthetic learning for the topic on ‘Senses’ since it was all about senses after all.
I purchased a set of teaching material from Teacher-Pay-Teacher, and it was totally worth it. There were many suggestions lined up for them to enjoy the hands-on activities revolving around senses.
We enjoyed treasure hunts, searching for items in the house which are smooth or rough, soft or hard. We identified objects we can touch, things with a pleasant or pungent smell, things we can only see, etc. We drummed noisily and softly. We made an ear crown when we learned that we listen with our ears.
Books we read
We read lots of books on our body and senses. Sharing here our favourites.
Brown bear treasury / Eric Carle* – this is our all-time favourite. This book complies Eric Carle’s 4 best selling books that feature children’s favourite animals and themes – colours, actions, sounds and babies. We practically read and sing this every day for 2 months. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?”, “I see a red bird looking at me”; ” Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? I hear a zebra braying in my ears.”
Look inside your body * – A fabulous flap book that introduces the body in a fun way. This is where the tots learn the basics of the human’s skeletal system and the digestive system. It is incredible how fast young children learn if we can introduce concepts in an easy-to-understand manner.
The big body book / Simon Abbott* – We love the cute illustrations here. I am torn between which to rate higher, The Big Body Book? Or Usborne’s Look Inside Your Body Book.
My big book of beginner books about me* – A compilation of six classic Beginner Books–The Foot Book, The Eye Book, and The Tooth Book, The Nose Book and The Ear Book, and The Knee Book. The contents are fun and straightforward to read, with repetitive words without boring the kids. If I invest some time and money in this set, my tots will probably read sooner.
What I hear / by Alex Appleby – I love this early reader series and borrowed the entire set for the tots to discover more about their senses. It is informative yet simple to understand and supported by photographies that bring out the point.
Legs & feet / Julie Murray – I borrowed the entire set of books too. This set covers the body parts and has aided me a lot in our course of learning.
Sounds all around* – While the words in this book are a little to complex for the little ones, I still read it a couple of times to the tots. We followed the book to clap our hands, snap our fingers to make a sound. We learned how people and animals use different sound to communicate and how our vocal cords vibrate when we speak. The tots were amused when I held their little hands on my throat and spoke. This is a Level 1 Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Series. I will probably invest in a couple to read to the tots as and when we like.
Related Videos for Our Body and Five Senses
You probably know that I like to get my hands on related DVDs to the theme of the month to reinforce our learning.
Sid the Science kid. All my senses and 2 other science explorations
I hope you have found something useful from my post here.
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