Senses Exploration: Leaves

This week, I introduced the five senses to my preschool class. It's a concept we will be visiting regularly throughout the year to explore and experience different learning topics. Since fall leaves are abundant in my neighborhood right now, we used that as a backdrop for using our five senses.

First, we read (and acted out) this book:

Then we went outside and went on our own leaf hunt. I prompted the kids to use their senses as they looked for the leaves by asking questions. What does it sound like when you walk through the leaves? What do the leaves look like? What colors do you see? What does it feel like? etc. When we came back inside we made a simple chart to process the experience. It was hard to come up with a word to describe how leaves smell- they just kept saying "it smelled like leaves!" :)

We decided as a class that there was no need to taste the leaves. We were pretty sure they would not taste good. :)

We ended up with a nice collection of leaves to use for some activities in class.

I also went on my own leaf hunt in preparation for these activities because I wanted some leaf manipulatives that might last a little longer. I have made laminated leaf bookmarks before with classes that have turned out pretty well, and so I tried laminating some leaves and also made some leaf color pages for the kids to work with.

Unfortunately, not all of the leaves kept their vibrant color after a few days went by, but it still worked as a learning tool. (I used laminating sheets and my desktop laminator to make them, and wonder if the colors might last better with a professional laminator -which is what I have used in the past).

I also made some leaf pages to use for building math vocabulary words such as big/small, taller/shorter, size, shape, etc. as we describe, sort, and work with leaves.