Sense of Sight: Day 1

Cynthia(Nanny): 

This week we will learn about the fifth sense; the sense of sight. Today during our Morning meeting I reviewed the senses we've learned and said we should be learning about sight. I pointed to my eyes and said we use our eyes to.... I wanted them to finish my sentence and big sister said "see things!" We practiced naming things around the room that we could see. Then I covered their eyes to demonstrate how if our eyes are covered or closed, we are unable to see. Our theme with sense of sight will be colors, so the majority of our activities will be centered around color. Our first activity was using colored circles to create patterns. We practiced touching and moving the circles first before gluing. When we "take turns" putting the items in line, they seem to catch on alot faster. After some practice I had the girls make a pattern and glue it on a sentence strip. I was happy to see that big sister created an A-B-B-A pattern.  Very impressive especially after having a week off! :)

Next, I read Baby bear, baby bear, what do you see?  By Bill Martin to reinforce sight. Afterwards I even tried having the girls retell the story in the order it happened. With a few prompts they were able to retell about 75% off the story. After lunch, we created a Colors Poetry book. I created simple songs to help them with color identification. I cut the pages and had the girls glue them into their books. After they glued them, I read them out loud and had them help me read using the picture cues. These books will go in their browsing bags for future reading.

Guru Moment: After seeing one of Arielle's posts using lap desks for the kids,  I decided these portable work spaces were a great idea. Luckily I found them at Michael's for $5 each. Thanks for the tip Arielle! :)

Arielle (mommy):  

Today was a busy day between the park, the gym, and Lil having a friend over.  We introduced the sense of sight by playing "I spy" in the car.  The old game where you say "I spy something red" and everyone has to guess what it is you are "spying".

To do some exploration of color and light, we got out our water beads, I added some color paddles, and some colorful links so we could change the color of the clear beads by putting them on the different colored objects.  

Guru moment: Since Owen loves to throw the water beads all over, I put some into bottles for him, and hot glue the lids on.  I even put glitter in one for the added color.

To learn about colors and how they mix together we free painted with acrylic paints on canvas.  I let the girls explore by mixing the paints.  We discussed what colors to use to make new colors and continued our discussion of sight as we talked about the colors we see in nature. I used an old calendar with photos of landscapes to protect the table, so these provided some inspiration for the paintings and the discussion.