Today is the beginning of my favorite season! My kids are already sick of me talking about how much I love Fall! But I really do! I love all things fall! The cooler weather, which allows us to open our windows and enjoy fresh air comfortably! I already love hot coffee, so now I can drink that more comfortably now wherever I am! Fall just makes me happy!

So studying our five senses today with our Mother Goose Time curriculum was a perfect way to end our school week, since mine were already heightened with excitement!

And the kids were stocked because Fridays mean a little bit of a different routine, where we all stay at the table to engage in our Mother Goose Time lessons instead of the kids having separate lessons mid-morning.

Since Natalie is going to be joining us, I have been bringing in a few more resources, so that I can give her additional information on any topic we discuss, as well as expose Peter to a little bit more of a challenging approach to a topic in hopes to learn more about his natural interests and abilities as well. So I’ll be highlighting some of these materials as well!

We started off our day today talking about our bones and muscles, focusing on an X-Ray exercise from Day 3 of our September Theme, My Amazing Body. I knew the kids would enjoy looking at the pictures of the different x-rays, and it would be a great lead into our discussion on our different senses by looking at the main framework of our bodies.

We’ve briefly discussed what an x-ray does and talked about how amazing it is that we have technology that allows us to see into our bodies without having to cut them open. I, for one, am thankful for that!

Nat got to cutting up her bones pretty quickly.

Peter decided he always wanted to create a full body skeleton and was trying to decide what to do with the longer bones provided.

I’ll be honest and admit that I wasn’t quite sure what bone was being represented when Natalie asked, but we both agreed that it did look a lot like a hairbow, so she decided the top of the skull was a good place for it.

We had a great discussion about why there were holes in the skull where the eyes would normally be, and how are bodies are made up of a lot of different materials.

And then we moved right into our discussion of the five senses.

Thanks for this nifty overview in the Teacher’s Guide, I was able to peruse the upcoming lessons quickly this morning and pick out one from each day to highlight as we discussed the corresponding sense. Since Mother Goose Time is not own only curriculum, it was WONDERFUL to have it so well organized so that I really can determine pretty easily what will work best in our lesson for the day.

Here are my choices:

For Sight, we were going to check out the fun Hidden Picture Language exercise!

For Hearing, we were going to make our bowl bands.

For Taste, I was interested in the writing lesson for “A is for Apple” and for Touch, the Soft Circles activity looked fun with the soft dice and red discs.

And lastly, for Smell, we were going to read the “It Smells” I Can Read book. (I LOVE these! I love the word pointers that help Peter identify the words throughout the book. Such a clever idea!)

So I was pretty ambitious, thinking we could easily get through our six activities today, but we only ended up getting to Sight and Hearing. However, the kids were really engaged the whole time and so I think they will look forward to possibly even some Saturday school tomorrow as we wrap up the other three senses.

Here are the Hidden Picture boards that were provided for Day 6, Sight.

I loved how they provided the little pieces to cut off the bottom. Super easy, but so effective!

Loved these bright and colorful images!

This activity also caught my eye, so we decided to learn a little bit more about Piet Mondrian and his artistic style.

This was Peter’s initial take on Mondrian’s approach.

Then he got to work cutting and adapting his design.

Peter’s finished work! I personally like his better than Piet’s, but I’m a little biased.

Nat’s, not surprisingly, was more geared towards the rectangles and lines of Mondrian’s style.

Moving on the Hearing, we focused on our bowl band and also another activity, not pictured here.

This was a fun exercise, asking the kids to identify images that they immediately correlated with one of the five senses. Of course, with most of the images, there was more than one correct answer, but it was fun to see what the kids immediate reactions were to the pictures.

I failed to get pictures of the finished bowl bands! Peter was still diligently at work coloring the inside long after Natalie had finished and moved on!

And as I mentioned above, we had pulled out a few additional resources to go a little bit deeper into the biology of our senses. I didn’t realize until I started compiling for this post that they were all three Usborne books! They are very naturally becoming my favorite Science go-to books this year!

This has easily become one of our new favorites, period! Several times this week I found one or both of the kids looking through this book at the dining room table on their own. I snagged this when I hosted an Usborne book party on Facebook the other month! (It’s a great way to get some discounted books!)

I love how visually appealing this book is, with the graphics, colors, and also the tactical appeal of the flip tabs!

Natalie was quick to tell me that we had more than 200 bones in our body because she could remember it from a Storybots episode (another super cute resource!).

Aren’t these great? I love the little snippets that I can share with them and see if it peaks their interest. If there is a natural bent there, then I will spend more time discussing that topic and gather other resources. Otherwise, it’s great information for them to be exposed to, nonetheless.

We spend some time talking about how our bodies were created so wonderfully (which we are also discussing this month in our Experience God Bible curriculum through Mother Goose time).

I had also pulled out this gem right here. I also snagged this book, along with the previous one, during my book party. Seriously – hostess rewards are the way to go if you are a book nerd on a budget like me!

We focused a lot on the descriptions here for each of the senses, discussing the examples they gave of each animal. For sight, we focused on how our pupils dilate and expand, depending on the amount of light its exposed to. We also discussed why it’s so helpful for rabbits to have long ears, and how grasshoppers hear through their legs! So fun!

And then last, we pulled out what is actually Natalie’s Science book for this year in her My Father’s World curriculum, Adventures in US History.

I was really encouraged to hear Peter explain to Natalie why the butterfly in the middle of the eye was upside down (a topic we had discussed earlier this week from an image he had seen in the flip-tab Usborne book listed above).

I remember thinking when I was explaining it to him that this was probably going right over his head, that he’s only four, but I might as well talk about it since he’s asking. It was so neat to hear him repeat the information back to his sister, finally getting a chance to be the teacher to his older sibing for once.

And it reminded me to not underestimate my kids, but continue to expose them to more and more resources. If it’s too advanced for them right now, then there will be time for that and plenty of review ahead. But if it’s not challenging enough, then I’m doing them a disservice and not helping them reach the potential that God has placed inside of them. This was definitely a good reminder of that for me today.

And honestly, it’s teaching me a lot along the way! I’m finding myself in awe of God’s creative design and loving to learn about the intricacies of His creations!  So we’re all just learning together!

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