Knightly News

Episcopal kindergarten teacher Sara Henderson is quick to say that she and her fellow kindergarten teachers, Maria Campbell and Erin Dufour, have the best job at Episcopal. “We take children where they are and help them grow where they are planted,” says Henderson. “We get to be the lucky ones to foster a love for learning.”

Recently, the kindergarten team has been encouraging that love and an exploration of the world through the annual five senses project-based learning unit. Henderson says as students learn about their senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing, they are encouraged to think like a little scientist. The five and six-year-olds make observations and meet milestones such as learning to sort objects based on their properties and how to represent information in a variety of forms using graphs, charts and tables.
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The five senses project had to be revised this year due to current pandemic restrictions. “We usually start this project off with a visit from the mobile zoo and the five senses package, we are really just trying to make things we have done in the past more hands on, more fun and bring those things into the curriculum across subject areas,” says Henderson. She says this year students are exploring using items that can be brought into the classroom, such as kinetic sand, water beads, writing sight words in coarse salt, oobleck and shaving cream. “We were able to tie our five senses into our math unit of texture,” says Henderson. “We tied in with art and the color wheel.  Just trying to make as many connections as we can within our new perimeters.