The Five Senses in the North Pole

I love learning about the five senses in December and it's a new thing for me the past few years. It was thanks to Shari Sloane. She has amazing ideas! I was lucky enough to see her in person at the Kindergarten Conference in Las Vegas last July and I own two of her CDs. If you click {HERE} you will be directed to Shari's site and her little book section....you will need to scroll down to find the "Little Elf, Little Elf" book.

Here is the cover of Shari's book that I have made.....the inside is even cuter! You can see it all (and download it) at her site.

We start our Christmas in the North Pole 5 Senses exploration with the book, "Elf Elementary." (That is also Shari's idea.) The kids really enjoy this story and I learned some facts I didn't know.

We then do one sense per day- completing a circle map for each:

The bottom one is my hearing map from last year.... it is clear why I made the move to using clip art. Wow! It's pretty bad, huh. I didn't even attempt a picture for reindeer stomping.... believe me, it's better for all of us that way. I will say though that I liked what the kids came up with.

"Santa's dinner" on my smell map was one of my favorites....needless to say, I didn't have that picture pre-printed out. (I try to have many of the pictures already printed and cut out so that the kids and I truly make the chart all together) The best part was that it was one of my kiddos with limited English who came up with the brilliant idea. Then another little friend told me I needed to get a picture with steak on it.... so that is what I did! I think that sounds about right...Santa probably does enjoy a little steak!

On the last day we did the taste page. We tape one mini candy cane into the book and eat and enjoy another one as we practice reading our new books:

I just put together all the graphic organizers I use during this unit on TPT. Just click {HERE}