Summer Camp Recap: My Five Senses

By Erica Jackson, Intern, Phipps Science Education and Research

Summer Camp Recap - is our weekly seasonal segment featuring our summer camp programs. This is the place for camp parents to find pictures of their campers in action and see all the fun things we did all week. It’s also a great place for educators to pick up craft, story and lesson ideas for their own early childhood programs!

My Five Senses

This past week at Phipps, our Little Sprout campers explored all of their senses through a variety of songs, crafts, and, of course, plants! We smelled many fragrant flowers, tasted some delicious fruits, and played instruments made out of seeds! By the end of the week, everyone learned a lot about the different sizes, shapes, flavors, and smells that plants come in.

On Monday, we focused on sight. We saw big leaves, small leaves, colorful leaves, round leaves, thin leaves, and more!  Next, we tested out some magnifying glasses and binoculars to improve our eyesight, and finished the day by searching the Tropical Forest Congo for ‘worms.’

Tuesday was full of smells! From rosemary and sage to cinnamon and coffee, we smelled our way through the conservatory. These Little Sprouts even got to plant their own wonderfully smelly plants, scented geraniums!

On Wednesday, we explored touch and taste. Campers used materials of all different textures to create frames and later touched some interesting plants in the conservatory. Our special guest, Chef John, talked to us about food and shared some his favorite snacks with the group.

For the final day of camp, everyone got to be a musician! In the conservatory, we listened to the sounds of seed pods, waterfalls, birds, and frogs, and stopped by the Stove Room to visit the butterflies. To wrap up the week, campers played their seed drums while Miss Carolyn joined in on her violin!

Thanks for a great week! Although summer is almost over, the fun doesn’t stop there! Keep on exploring the five senses with these ideas:

Books About Senses:

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.

My Five Senses by Aliki

You Smell and Taste and Feel and See by Mary Murphy

Meow Said the Cow by Emma Dodd

David Smells! David Shannon

Chew Chew Gulp! By Lauren Thompson

Mystery Sound Matching Game:

Collect small, opaque containers and put different items inside - coins, legos, sand, rocks, jingle bells, etc. Put each item in two separate containers, and have your Little Sprout match the identical sounds by shaking the containers and using their ears! Or, just mix them up and guess what’s inside!

For more pictures from this week's camp, please visit the Science Education and Research Facebook page here!

All photographs taken by Science Education staff.