PKFA-3  Ms. Heather & Ms. Caitlyn 

Unit 2 Title: My Five Senses

Ideas for Family Engagement: 

Invite families to look out of a window (store, bus, subway, bedroom, etc.) and discuss what they see at various times throughout the day. What do they see in the morning? In the evening? Right before bed? What is different each time they look? What is the same? Why?

Encourage families to take a sensory walk together. Ask families to pay attention to what they hear, see, feel and smell. Additionally, encourage them to discuss how they can use their senses to stay safe when walking outside. How do our eyes help keep us safe? For example, looking for cars before crossing the street or identifying unsafe items to touch such as garbage or sharp items. How about our ears? Can our sense of smell help keep us safe? How? This can occur anywhere at any time families and their children are walking together.

Ask families to invite their children to smell or taste a new food or something they would not usually eat. Provide prompts to encourage discussion, how does it look? What do you see? How does the food feel before you try it? How does it feel in your mouth? How does it taste? How does it smell? Would you try it again? Why or why not? Note: Help families stay safe when trying new foods by providing information about allergic reactions and what to do in case of an emergency.

Send home a brown paper bag with each child to have a Brown Bag Scavenger Hunt. Ask families to find items of various textures at home or natural objects collected from outside, that are clean and safe for small children to handle such as pinecones, acorns or leaves. Talk about why certain items might be safe or not safe. Put them in the bag for children to bring to school and share with a partner. Be sure to remind families that the items they send in should not be valuable and may get lost.