Using the 5 Senses for Descriptions

As planned - albeit a few months later! - I took the girls to the first of several different locations so they could practise using their five senses to write more detailed descriptions. We also recapped all five verbs in Arabic, too.

Our first stop was the woodland area of Martineau Gardens.

We focused on one sense at a time, making notes of at least one example for each, then adding in anything extra to any other box once they'd got into it (we walked round with clipboards which they loved the novelty of!).

You can download the worksheet template here.

Later on at home, they used their notes to write sentences underneath a picture of where we went.

First, we read a couple of examples of descriptions from their favourite book series at the moment: Willow Valley. The opening chapters always begin with a nice description, so we read a couple of examples and talked about which senses were being used for each thing.

e.g. "It was a bright, sunny morning in Willow Valley. Butterflies danced through meadows of clover, birds sang in the trees, and shimmering dragonflies fluttered over the river. The cave-houses on the rolling green hills all had their doors open wide as happy little animals pattered out to play in the sunshine." [Willow Valley - A Seaside Rescue, by Tracey Corderoy]

I asked them if that description was better than just saying, for example, "In Willow Valley there were butterflies, birds and dragonflies. Animals played outside." They said the description in the book was better because they could imagine being there!

I let them free write, so no spelling aid, reminders about capitals and full stops, spaces between words, etc... and put the sandtimer on for 30min so they had a set time to write in - in between talking to each other and to me before they wrote their sentences down! One of them finished within the 30min, the other decided she wanted to write for a little longer. I'm thinking of using this piece of writing for some editing work later on, giving them the chance to check for mistakes and improve.

You can download the second worksheet template here.

I left a blank in the title so we can re-use it for a different location and they will already be familiar with what to do. I might print out a photo again, or leave that space empty for them to draw a picture... Or we might link to ICT and have them type up their description into the file on the laptop. Will see how it goes, insha'Allah!

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. 😁

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Taste

The Sense of Taste - اَلذَّوْقُ

I taste... - ... أَنَا أَذُوقُ

We talked about the sense of taste and how everything can be sorted into 5 main groups: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

The girls were then blindfolded and I gave them something to taste, one at a time. First, they guessed what it was (... أَنَا أَذُوقُ - if they didn't know the Arabic word they could just say that word in English!) then I told them which category that food was an example of. The foods we did were:

Sweet = teaspoon of honey. They already knew what sweet meant!

Salty = ready salted crisps. They already knew salty, too!

Sour = slice of lemon. These foods make your mouth pucker up.

Bitter = spinach leaf. These foods make you want to stick your tongue out.

Umami = cheese. These foods have a really strong flavour.

They took off their blindfolds and I gave them some more foods to taste; some were distinctly only one of the five basic tastes, others were a mixture - I tried to choose a variety that would lead to a good discussion and understanding!

The foods we used and the groups we thought they belonged to were:

banana = sweet

fizzy belt = sweet & sour
kiwi = sweet & sour

cucumber = sweet & bitter
dark chocolate drops = sweet & bitter
whipped cream & coffee = sweet & bitter
popcorn = salty & sweet
salt n' vinegar crisps = salty & sour
tuna = salty & umami
Marmite on toast = salty & umami
soy sauce = salty & umami
ketchup = sweet & umami

Finally, they filled in the below worksheet and recapped sorting using a two-way table.

We did the worksheet later on in the day so they had to think and remember which foods they tasted! We wrote down what they could remember on the whiteboard then I helped them fill in the gaps. Then they worked through the list sorting them into where they thought they best fit. Lastly, they could colour the pictures if they wanted! And we talked about which taste each picture represented.

You can download our worksheet template here. I forgot to blank out half of the squares for their copies but it's fixed in the original file now. 😊

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Sound

The Sense of Sound - اَلسَّمَعُ

I hear... - ... أَنَا أَسْمَعُ

I put the next pair of Arabic vocabulary on the whiteboard and the girls practised reading and repeating the words. We played a quick game: I would say a sentence in Arabic e.g. "I hear a cow", "I hear a car", etc. and the girls needed to repeat after me then make the appropriate noise/action.

We recapped the sense we looked at previously, i.e. sight, and reminded ourselves of the body part associated with hearing, i.e. ears - using both English and Arabic.

The girls closed their eyes so they couldn't use their sense of sight to help, then they had to guess which object I was using to make a noise, e.g. scrunching a packet of crisps, scissors snipping, tapping the wooden table, turning the tap on, clinking two glasses together, flicking through the pages of a book, etc.

We repeated the activity from before, making a mini obstacle course in the front room, except this time one girl was blindfolded and the other had to give directions to guide her to other side (this was also me sneakily checking on their Numeracy targets and being able to use the language of position/direction/movement 😏).

After reading about echo location and bats, we played a similar game (could do this in the garden next time if the weather's better, insha'Allah!) whereby the girls were blindfolded pretending to be bats and they needed to follow my voice to catch me. Afterwards, we talked about how fast they moved while blindfolded - fast or slow - and why that was - so they were less likely to fall over! - and then watched some videos of animals on YouTube which have poor eyesight and discussed whether they moved quickly or not. Why were they able to move so fast? SubhanAllah, because Allah created them that way, i.e. with super-hearing.

Finally, I asked them if they had a favourite sound/sounds and what it would be like if they couldn't hear anymore. We talked about how some people are born without being able to hear, or they might lose their hearing later on in life e.g. through an accident or an illness, and these people are known as 'deaf'. Alhamdulillah, we've been blessed with the sense of sound - to enjoy the world and also to keep us safe. How can being able to hear keep us safe? e.g. when crossing the road, hearing someone shout a warning if something dangerous is about to happen... So how do deaf people communicate if they can't hear what's being said? Many of them are very good at lipreading (we had a go at this with me emphasising the shapes of words slowly and them having to guess what I was saying) and they also have a special language called sign language! They were familiar with this already from watching Mr Tumble on CBeebies. 😂Then we played a simple game of charades taking it in turns to act out animals for each other to guess - then compared it to making the animal's sound and talking about which was easier!

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Sight

The Sense of Sight - اَلْبَصَرُ

I see... - …أَنَا أَرَى

After a quick recap of what the 5 senses were (in both English and Arabic), I asked the girls which sense they thought they used the most - after some discussion we agreed it was the sense of sight because when we go to a new place, the first thing we do is look around and that's the first bit of information we get about a new place. We also reminded ourselves of which body part we use to see with.

I had the Arabic vocabulary on display on the whiteboard, so we could refer to it throughout the day and the lesson. They had a go at reading the words and coming up with sentences using the verb "I see". We needed to take care with word endings here (teaching the actual grammar point is a little difficult for them to understand at this age, so I'm hoping they'll begin to pick it up naturally through lots of practise in context), i.e. the noun being described needs to end in a fatha (أَنَا أَرَى القَلَمَ، أَنَا أَرَى بَقَرَةً)

To understand how important our sense of sight is, and how blessed we are to be able to see, we did a couple of activities to highlight this.

I cleared the front room, got the girls to stand at one end and they needed to walk to the other end. Easy! Then they had to repeat it, this time with their eyes closed. It was manageable, since it was just walking in a straight line, but still a little harder than being able to see. Next, I put some soft obstacles on the floor, e.g. cushions, cuddly toys, beanbags. With their eyes open, they needed to get to other side of the room without touching any obstacles - still pretty easy. Then they had to try again, but this time wearing a blindfold so they couldn't see... If they touched an obstacle it wasn't so bad, but they needed to try not to fall over at least! Then we tried it again with both of them blindfolded at the same time, so they had the added obstacle of not bumping into each other!

We talked about how they knew where the objects on the ground where even though they couldn't see them - they could still feel them - and how they knew where their sister was even though they couldn't see them - they could hear them. So when one of our senses isn't working, we can use our other senses to compensate/help us instead. We talked about other examples, e.g. when it was dark in their room at night or when it was too noisy to hear each other talk they could use actions instead. I then explained about how some people can't see and it's as if they're blindfolded all the time - they're blind. They sometimes use a long stick, a bit like a walking stick, to help them "see" by feeling obstacles in the way, or they might have a guide dog to help them! I then gave the girls a stick each (for one reason or another we had a hand pointer in the house so used that!) so they could get an idea of what it was like and they agreed it was a little tricky! Alhamdulillah we've been blessed with both eyes working fine.

Since the room was clear, I decided to make the most of it and play a simple game while they practised their Arabic: they had 2 cushions each, one to sit on and one to hold. Each time they said a sentence correctly along the pattern of, "I can see [noun]" (e.g. أَنَا أَرَى كِتَابً، أَنَا أَرَى البَابَ) they could throw the cushion in their hands forwards, jump onto it then pick up the cushion from behind, i.e. in this way move across the room to the other side. Then they repeated it as a race but standing up. 😁

To calm down again, we watched this Sesame Street video about service dogs (and this related song), followed by this short video of kids meeting a service dog for the blind.

We also talked about glasses and how they help people to see who would otherwise have blurry vision. They named all the people they knew who wore glasses then I smeared some Vaseline on a magnifying lens for them to look through. Could they imagine always seeing the world blurry like this? Would it give them a headache? I cleaned the magnifying glass and we talked about how it can help us to see things better by making things bigger, then we used the magnifying glasses to look at things around the house in more detail. Throughout this activity, we kept on practising the Arabic vocabulary and making sentences along the pattern of "I see [noun]".

Science/Arabic - The 5 Senses

We continued our topic by reading about the 5 senses in a non-fiction book ("My Senses" from this series), which I then left in their book box so they were free to explore it whenever they felt.

We talked a bit about the 5 senses and how we use them to understand the world around us, then I quizzed them on which body part they thought they used for each sense (with them reminding me what each sense was!).

I then gave them another cut-and-stick worksheet to do, wherein they needed to match the sense with the body part (recap) as well as the Arabic translation for each sense (new vocab):

You can download the worksheet here.

This episode of Iftah Yaa Simsim is all about the 5 senses, so we watched it together as a recap. At 6:35, they sing a nice song about the 5 senses - even if, like us, you don't understand a lot of what they're saying, the chorus is simple enough and catchy! They use the indefinite form of the nouns, as opposed to the definite forms in our worksheet, but the words are definitely still recogniseable. 😊

The plan for the rest of the topic is to reinforce this new information by looking at one sense per day in more detail, through an activity/mini-experiment, insha'Allah. The Arabic vocab will also be reinforced on each day, too, as well as the associated verb (e.g. "I see ..." when doing about sight); so only two new words to focus on a day but they've already had the overview of all five nouns from the above worksheet.

Once we've looked at all 5 senses, I plan to take the kids out to a variety of different environments (e.g. the Botanical Gardens, ThinkTank, etc.) so they can link their 5 senses to Literacy and writing detailed descriptions. Insha'Allah a separate blog entry will follow for each thing!