Science/Arabic - The Sense of Touch

The Sense of Touch - اَللَّمْسُ

I can feel... - ... أَنَا أَلْمَسُ

We reminded ourselves of the five senses and which part of the body we use for each one - we talked about how we feel things with every part of our body, so our skin, but it's easiest to use our hands and fingers when we want to know what something feels like!

I wrote the word "texture" on the whiteboard as a new concept. Something's texture is just the way it feels... So we talked about some familiar objects and how the word they use to describe what it feels like is its texture, eg their skin is soft and smooth, a tree trunk is rough and bumpy... Then we quickly read through some of their younger sister's "That's Not My..." book series, emphasising the word "texture" for the material on each page. This was also useful in giving them some ideas for words for later on.

I then gave them a piece of coloured card each so they could draw around their hands to represent the sense of touch and then cut them out (fine motor skills and scissor practise). Our 2 year old joined in with this part too; obviously I had to help her with the drawing and cutting! One of the twins asked me to neaten up her cut out hands for her while the other was happy doing it herself. Then they stuck these down onto another piece of coloured card.

I'd already prepared a variety of materials from around the house (chosen to encourage them to use a wide range of vocabulary and so help their descriptive language) which they felt one by one before sticking down around the paper. We also used this opportunity to remind ourselves of the Arabic for "I can feel ..."

The materials I chose for them were:

1) a feather

2) cotton wool

3) a piece of shiny gift bag

4) a piece of foam

5) blu tac

6) a lolly stick

7) velcro hooks

8) glittery card

9) scrunched tin foil

10) pipe cleaner

Some things they stuck down with PVA glue, the others with sellotape - it was good to hear their reasoning for why it was easier to use sellotape for some items and why they could only use sellotape on the edges rather than simply on top (or they couldn't feel the texture!).

After a break, to let the glue dry, we got out one of the big whiteboards and brainstormed a list of vocabulary they could use to describe the textures on their paper, making sure they had at least one word for each thing. There's something about writing on a whiteboard kids find fun, mine being no exception, so doing this as a shared activity was really effective!

To finish off, the girls had to choose one word to describe each texture and write them down inside the fingers of their cut out hands - 10 textures, 10 fingers! They could use the whiteboard display for ideas and spelling help. 

Obviously the toddler didn't do this last part! But she really enjoyed the gluing activity and got to hear all the lovely vocabulary being used to copy whilst talking about what she'd made. 😁