Five Senses: Herbs and Spice: Does That Smell Nice?

Herbs & Spice Playdough: Sense of Smell

Lesson Plan for 1st Grade

Prepared by Mrs. Yandell

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

Students will learn the how each of the five senses work together to help us explore the world around us.  This lesson will focus on the importance of smell.  

EDUCATION STANDARDS

Collaboration

1. The students will understand how God created us with the abilities to experience His creation.
2. The students will use their five senses to investigate, describe, and compare objects.
3. The students will use their five senses to enhance their writing abilities.
4. The students will use their five senses to describe an object.
5. The students will recognize how they interact with their environment through their senses

OBJECTIVES

1. Discovering the importance of our five senses
2. Discovering God’s desire for our senses
3. Learning to make observations using sense of touch
4. Learning the importance of observations to identify characteristics
5. Recognizing categories of living things vs non-living things

MATERIALS NEEDED

1. 7-8 Natural herbs and spices
2. Dough
1. 1 cup cornstarch or potato starch
2. 1 ¼ cup brown rice flour
3. ½ tsp guar gum or xanthan gum
4. 1 cup salt
5. ¾-1 cup water

VERIFICATION

Steps to check for student understanding

1. Were you able to choose your favorite herb/spice without smelling it?
2. After smelling the the herb/spice, do you still agree you chose your favorite?
3. By smelling the herb/spice, were you able to learn more about it?
4. How does your sense of smell help you to identify things in our environment?
5. Can your sense of smell help you learn more about your environment?

ACTIVITY

In this lesson, students will be using their sense of smell to help them identify things in their environment.  In groups of four, students will look and touch eight different herbs/spices at their table.  They will chose their favorite based solely on sight and touch.  They will then have the opportunity to smell the herb/spice they chose, along with the other seven herb/spices.  After smelling all of the spices, students will identify which one they like best, and compare it to their first choice.  As a class, we will go over the importance of our sense of smell, and how it can help us to identify and classify things in our environment.

Next, the students will have the opportunity to use their favorite herb/spice to make an aromatic gluten free playdough.  

Recap written by Jessica Yandell:

Our first-grade students had the opportunity to explore their sense of smell and use their favorite herb/spice to create an aromatic gluten free playdough! As an introduction to this lesson, we showed a video clip that talked about how our nose works http://viewpure.com/hzOSzX_HXE4?start=0&end=0 . The kids thought this video was hilarious…, but it was a great way to catch their attention as we learned about our sense of smell.

 

This activity was broken into three parts.  I placed eight cups on each group's desk, which were filled with different herbs and spices.  I asked the students to plug their nose, and breath through their mouths.  Then they were to use only their sense of sight and touch to explore the herbs and spices in front of them.  Each student was to choose their favorite without using their sense of smell.  After everyone in each group had the opportunity to touch and look at the different cups, I asked everyone to smell each cup and decide if the cup they initially chose was still their favorite.

Most everyone said no..! As a class, we smelled one cup at a time and talked about the herb or spice that was in the cup.  For this activity, we used: french lavender, lavender, rosemary, lemon pepper, cinnamon, basil, clove, & garlic.  This was a very aromatic experience that was truly a sensory experience for our students! The last part of the activity, each student was able to use as many herbs and spices to make their gluten free dough smell good!

Five Senses: SIGHT with First Grade

Five Senses: Sight

Lesson Plan for 1st Grade

Prepared by Ms. Yandell

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

Students will learn the how each of the five senses work together to help us explore the world around us.  This lesson will focus on the importance of sight.

EDUCATION STANDARDS

Collaboration

1. The students will understand how God created us with the abilities to experience His creation.
2. The students will use their five senses to investigate, describe, and compare objects.
3. The students will use their five senses to enhance their writing abilities.
4. The students will use their five senses to describe an object.
5. The students will recognize how they interact with their environment through their senses

OBJECTIVES

1. Discovering the importance of our five senses
2. Discovering God’s desire for our senses
3. Learning to make observations using sense of touch
4. Learning the importance of observations to identify characteristics
5. Recognizing categories of living things vs nonliving things

MATERIALS NEEDED

Blindfolds
Paper and Pencil
Various Objects 15

VERIFICATION

1. How do you use your eyes every day?
2. What did you do?
3. What did you learn?
4. What questions do you have?

ACTIVITY

This activity will be comprised of three parts.  

We will begin the activity in the classroom, where we will go over the function of our eyes, and talk about the importance of using sight to explore our environment.  The three-part activity will take place outside.  First, the students will be blindfolded, and be asked to draw a picture without using their sight.  

 After looking at their pictures, students will observe how challenging it is to draw without being able to see.  The next activity, students will be blindfolded, and will start at one side of the courtyard.  They will be asked to keep their blindfolds on, and walk across the courtyard to a specified tree.  This challenge will give students the opportunity to experience how important sight is for us to be able to do so many things in our daily life.  The last activity, students will sit on the ground and will be shown 15 different objects, they will be able to look at them for 15 minutes, and then be ask to close their eyes… no peeking.  When they open their eyes,  they will be asked which objects were removed from the pile, and they will be asked to describe what the pile looked like, was any of the objects moved to a different place?

Recap written by Mrs. Yandell:

The goal for this year is to teach our first graders how God created us with the abilities to experience His creation and engage them in opportunities to use their five senses to investigate, describe, and compare objects.

Last week in the first-grade classes, we did a lesson on discovering the importance of our sense of sight.  This lesson consisted of three activities, which took place outside in the courtyard. Before starting the activities, we watched an educational children's video that described how our eyes work.  What I liked about this lesson was that children were able to participate in activities where they explored their environment blindfolded, which really gave them a good perspective how important our eyesight is!

There is one thing that I changed about this lesson by the time I taught the last class.  I decided in the first activity, the students should first draw a picture of their family and draw a blindfolded picture of their family.  This was a better approach than just drawing a picture blindfolded because they had two pictures to compare and really observe how much harder it is to draw without using sight.