Young Explorers

Whew!  I finally finished my Young Explorers packet.  For some reason, this one took many, many more hours of grief and frustration to make.  Much of the frustration was formatting issues.  The final product, in my humble opinion, looks pretty snazzy!


After teaching 20 years, I am always looking for ways to entertain challenge myself. Seriously, how many ways can you teach _____ , you fill in the blank.  Two of the ways I found to challenge myself was to integrate my curriculum and incorporate as many of the five senses as possible in my lessons.  Try it sometime, it's harder than you might think!  The sense of smell is the hardest to plan for.  On a side note, one of my favorite lessons with the sense of smell is to add a flavor extract such as peppermint to paint.  Students can paint word wall words with Q-tips, paint their favorite scene from a story they read, or make dots with Q-tips and paints when studying arrays in math.  Be sure to add a little dish soap to tempera paint so the paint will come out of clothes easily.  Another fun smelly lesson is to use shaving cream.  If you want some extra fun and a new smell, use gel shaving cream.  Your students will enjoy the change the gel makes.  The great thing about gel shaving cream is you can add a seasonal touch to your class with all the different colors it comes in.


When I first began this packet, it was going to be a few things to supplement your next geometric shape unit.  But, then I saw the pyramid shape which made me think of ancient Egypt which made me think of simple machines.  It's almost like the curriculum writer's version of "If you give a mouse a cookie"!!!!  So, what once was a geometric shape packet is now the "Young Explorers" packet.   I believe your students will use all of their five senses at least once when you teach the lessons included in this unit.


I found a fun game using Angry Birds that you should check out:   CLICK HERE


Here are a few pictures of some of the pages:

Here's a picture prompt from the packet for you:

Visit my TPT store if you'd like to get your own copy.