S and our 5 Senses!

This week we learned about the letter S and our 5 senses. We took our senses on the road and had some fun having our school time at a hockey game and the Newport Aquarium! I have to say, having school out in the community really appealed to Ava. She did some really good work this week and not once did she complain about a school activity. I know we can't realistically have school like this everyday, but it just made me more excited for the possibilities that home schooling presents! Take a look at our week! 

We started the week off with a family trip to the Cincinnati Cyclones game. Since it was President's Day, Kyle had the day off. Our neighbors came a long too!  

Prior to heading to the game, I introduced the letter S. We talked about words that start with S. We also read a book on the 5 senses and pointed out that the sense of sight and smell start with s too! I explained to Ava that while we were at the hockey game, she was going to use her 5 senses. She had to draw pictures in a journal of things that she heard, saw, smelled, touched, and tasted. 

At home, Ava practiced writing the letter S. 

We reviewed our letters through a few fun games of Alphabet Go Fish! 

We used one of our snack times this week to focus on the sense of taste! I blind folded Ava and Dominic and had them taste a marshmallow, pretzel, piece of dark chocolate, raisin, lemon, and we ended with a yummy treat of ice cream. As they tasted the different foods with their eyes covered, they identified foods that were sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. We also talked about how they knew they were eating ice cream, not only by the way it tasted, but also by the way it felt in their mouth. 

Ava taste testing! 

We used the Melissa and Doug number puzzles to practice numbers 1-15. 

We focused on the sense of smell by doing a painting project with Kool-Aid. I mixed different flavored packets of Kool-Aid with 2 TBS water each. The mixture created scented water colors. The kids had fun painting with them and identifying the different scents. This paint mixture does stain, so I highly recommend covering up clothes! Dominic has very blond hair. I was nervous he would try and paint his hair (because I wouldn't put it past him). Doesn't Kool-Aid dye hair? It was a very supervised painting project. 

Ava created a letter S mini book from First-School

One of the highlights of the week was the trip to the New Port Aquarium! We had some much fun that we went through twice! Same as the hockey game, we went knowing that we would be putting our five senses to work. Ava even picked up on the fact that she heard different types of music as each exhibit  As we walked through the shark exhibit she said the music made her feel like the sharks were going to bite! 

Watching the otters was a lot of fun. They were very lively and jumping and flipping in the water. A biologist was checking in on the exhibit and asked it we had any questions. Ava asked her what the otters eat and why they like to jump so much. 

One of the highlights of our trip to the aquarium was getting to feed the birds! Dominic wanted so badly for the birds to land on his arm. The bird keeper tried. Once food was involved, the birds were all about visiting with us. 

We used our sense of taste at Tom and Chee.

When we arrived home from the aquarium, Ava worked on completing another Five Senses journal describing our trip to the aquarium. 

The last activity we did was write postcards to Mimi and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa telling them all about what we saw at the aquarium!