Open Wide, Look Inside

Elinor J. Pinczes' book Inchworm and A Half takes the reader on a day in the life of an inchworm who loves to measure different objects in the garden.  Along the way, the inchworm realizes that every object in the garden is not an exact inch and he needs help.  The illustrations by Randall Enos are very lively and make it easy for the reader to visualize the inch, half-inch, third-inch, and quarter-inch in comparison to the objects being measured.

This book by Elinor Pinczes walks the reader through the daily activities of an inchworm loves to measure different objects.  He spends his days measuring fruit, vegetables, and leaves.  However, when the inchworm begins to measure a cucumber he realizes that the cucumber is a little more than two inches, but not quite three.  "My measurement's off just a bit. One, two, nearly three! How could this be?… (6)" The inchworm meets a smaller worm as he falls off the leaf that was attached to the cucumber.  After a few minutes of discussion, the smaller worm yelps, "I'm a fraction, that length should be easy for me (10)."  The smaller worm realizes that he is half the size of the inchworm and that he would fit perfectly on the end of the cucumber.  Every one loop the inchworm made, the half-inch worm made two and they continued through the garden (16).  However, the tandem came across another object- a carrot- that they were not able to measure.  Luckily, a smaller worm than the half-inch arrived and he announced that he was one-third of an inch.  The team received a new member and continued on their way, measuring everything they came across.  However, another object- this time being a tomato- that they were not able to fully measure appeared.  The three worms were astonished that something was smaller than one-third of an inch.  Yet again, the day was saved by another worm in the area who just happened to be one-fourth of an inch.  The four worms were ready to take on the world.

Curriculum Connections
This book can help students view objects in everyday life as measuring tools.  Instead of just using a ruler, yard stick, or meter stick, children may think to use a pencil, pen, or piece of paper to calculate the length of an object.  This book can create a new prospect for children and help them see more in an object than there appears to be.  This book will meet the requirements for the SOLs K.1f, 1.1e, and 2.1e.  The kindergarten and the first-grade SOLs require students to use non-standard object to measure objects.  The second-grade SOL requires students to learn the standard English units.

Additional Activities

• Try these activities on butterfly and caterpillar crafts.
• You can also build a model of an inchworm.

Book: Inchworm and A Half
Author: Elinor J. Pinczes
Illustrator: Randall Enos
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: 2003
Pages: 32 pages
Grades: K-2^nd
ISBN: 0618311017

The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses, written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen, is a great book for introducing science to children. The book is part of the Magic School Bus series, made famous with its engaging character Ms. Frizzle and her adventures with her class on the magic bus. In this story, Ms. Frizzle’s class jumps on the bus with the assistant principal as the driver. Not accustomed to the “magical” school bus, the assistant principal accidentally shrinks it with all the kids inside. The class, on a search for Ms. Frizzle, drive their shrunken bus through eyes, ears, brains, noses and finally the mouth of Ms. Frizzle herself. All the while the kids are learning about the five senses and how they react with the nerves in the brain with help from Ms. Frizzles class notes which made their way onto the bus.

Once again the Magic School Bus makes science fun and interesting by disguising the intricate facts with an action-packed plot line. In an excerpt, “‘We have to keep track of the Friz,’ said Ralphie. ‘Look for the part of the cortex,'” it’s easy to see how the lesson of the senses weaves throughout the storyline. Like the other books in the series, the Magic School Bus also includes detailed illustrations with many captions, labels and bonus facts about the topic. Each page of the plot is also bordered with illustrations of reports on the senses completed by Ms. Frizzle’s class. They add even more educational context in an easy to read, note-like format.

Curriculum Connections
This book can be used to open a lesson on the five senses or even a lesson on the science of the body. In Virginia it can relate to the kindergarten and 1st grade SOL for science investigation, learning about the senses and how we use them.

Additional Resources

• For further activities that correspond with the book check out the Scholastic website for games, printable worksheets and lesson ideas. See Gets and Earful.
• You should also check out the lesson plan about smelling and the nose with Ms. Frizzle’s class in The Magic School Bus Makes a Stink.

Book: The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
Author: Joanna Cole
Illustrator: Bruce Degen
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Publication Date: 2001
Pages: 32 pages
Grades: Kindergarten and 1st
ISBN: 0590446983

Are you interested in hearing what the owl hears as it tries to sleep. In the book Good-Night, Owl! by Pat Hutchins the reader is able to hear what animals annoy the owl as it sleeps.

The book begins with the owl trying to sleep up in a tree. While the owl is trying to sleep the disturbed by the sounds that animals around it begin to make. First, its the bees that “buzz, buzz.” Then come the squirrel that “crunch, crunch,” on nuts. Pat Hutchins utilizes onomatopoeia with all the animals that come near the owl. This gives the students an opportunity to connect the noises that they are reading with an illustration of the animal. The book gives ten different creatures that disturb the owl as it trying to sleep. There is a variation of creatures that Pat Hutchins uses, from jays to cuckoo to doves.

The illustrations are classic and show every animal very clearly for the students to understand. The Illustration also show that it is day time and indicate that the owl is nocturnal. This is a great topic to discuss with your students. At the end the when “the moon came up,” the “Owl screeched, screech screech, and woke everyone up.” The book shows how the owl also makes a distinct sound and the students are able to learn that as well.

Curriculum Connections
The book would be a good read for emergent readers in the first and second grade, who need to understand the sense of hearing. The majority of the words utilized are onomatopoeia words making it easier for the student to recognize and read. The students are also connecting sounds that they might hear in their every day life to actual illustration of animals that make the sounds. If teaching in Virginia this book would cover the Science SOL K.1C which is objects are described both pictorially and verbally and K.2 a, b students will investigate the five senses and sensory descriptions.

Additional Information

• Mrs. Attaya’s first grade class websites has various activities that her students have done with owls and the senses. These activities would be great to do through the year and like Mrs. Attaya did take pictures so the class can see them.
• Listen to the Desert/ Oye Al Desierto, by Pat Mora is also a great book to read to your student. This book focuses on the sounds that are made in the desert but they are in Spanish and English. This book could be read if there are children that speak Spanish and need to make the processing skill in a second language.
• Father’s Day Lesson Plan and Craft is another activity that focuses on sounds and onomatopoeia words. Students will create any type of gift they want to give their father as a father’s day gift and they incorporate an onomatopoeia word.

Book: Good-Night, Owl!
Author/Illustrator: Pat Hutchins
Publisher: Aladdin
Publication Date: 1990
Pages: 32 pages
Grade: K-1
ISBN: 978-0689713712

Have you ever struggled to come up with a fun and creative approach to teach the 5 senses to your students? Well, look no further because Joanna Cole, the author of the book, You Can’t Smell a Flower with Your Ear! has done exactly that. The fun and bright illustrations by Mavis Smith add a friendly and inviting touch to the book as well.

The book’s text provides a fun way to learn about the 5 different senses. It provides examples that children could easily relate to and experience in every day life. The most impressive part of the book are the fairly complex concepts that Cole nicely simplifies into terms that your students will comprehend:”Nerves-like wires-carry messages about the picture from the back of your eye to special places in your brain (Pg. 13).” The illustrations also nicely compliment and further explain key ideas in the text by providing diagrams for each major sense. The book goes through all of the 5 senses and gives a “try this” portion where students could actually test out how each of their sense are being activated.

 An example of a “Try This” would be:

“Dim the lights. Look at your eyes in a mirror. Are your pupils big? Now turn on a bright light. Did you see your pupils get smaller? Your pupils get bigger and smaller to let in just the right amount of light (Page 11) .”

Curriculum Connections
This book could be used to introduce students to different properties that could be observed by using their sense of sight, touch, hearing, feeling and smell. In the state of Virginia it would address the Standard of Learning 1.1 in the Science Standards of Learning, which looks at the differences in physical properties using the senses and how inferences can be made about a familiar object or event.

Additional Classroom Resources

• The Lesson Plans Page has a lesson plan with an activity that could further reinforce concepts from the book.
• InstructorWeb provides some worksheets to be printed out that deal with the five senses.
• Education World offers 10 great activities that could be used with your class to teach the five senses.

Book: You Can’t Smell a Flower with Your Ear!
Author: Joanna Cole
Illustrator: Mavis Smith
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Publication Date: 1994
Pages: 32 pages
Grades: 1-3 (might be a challenge for struggling 1st grade readers)
ISBN: 978-0448404691

Have you ever wondered why when you plug your ears, you cannot hear as well? Learn why and how your ears allow you to hear sounds and have fun while doing it.

Perk Up Your Ears by Vicki Cobb cannot only be used as an educational way to learn the mechanisms or the ear and how they produce sound. It is also a fun-filled, activity based book that will have kids on the go from the very beginning. Let’s face it, even the front cover entices you to take a peek inside for those people who judge a book by its cover. The catchphrase on the front says it all. “Discover your sense of hearing.” Not only will kids read and learn, but they will investigate and experiment with the ways in which sounds are produced using ordinary objects found in the home or classroom.

“The outer ear is made up of the pinna and the ear canal. The end of the canal is closed by a very thin “skin” called the eardrum. Sound strikes the eardrum and makes it vibrate. You can see how this happens if you stretch some plastic wrap tightly across the top of a bowl. Imagine that the stretched plastic wrap is your eardrum. Sprinkle some grains of sugar on the stretched plastic wrap drum. The sugar will dance up and down as the drum vibrates.”

The excerpt above is an example of the method the author uses to make the lesson information more tangible. The language of the book at times may seem a bit over the top in explaining the workings of the ear, but Vicki brings it back down to a child’s level by following it with an interactive approach. She discusses sound as energy and diagrams the structure of the inner ear. She also lists the parts of the outer ear and fun ways to understand how the entire ear works together by having the child use other senses, such as touch and vision, to understand concepts. Cobb even gives ways to check one’s own hearing and that of others. She gives tips about maintaining one’s hearing health and the ways in which harm may be done to it.

The bright and witty illustrations of Cynthis C. Lewis in this book will have kids mesmerized. The funny cartoons and eccentric art are another way for kids to be engaged in this book. Cobb definitely makes a point to ensure that this learning process is fun.

Curriculum Connections
This book could be used to help students seek, find, take in and react to information about the sense of hearing and its sensory descriptors (K.2). It may also help students learn to conduct investigations in which differences in physical properties are observed using the senses, simple tools are used to enhance observations, simple experiments are conducted to answer questions, inferences are made and conclusions are drawn about familiar objects and events.(1.1)

Additional Resources

• Here is a lesson plan on hearing and the ear.  
• You can also try these experiments to test your hearing. 
• This site presents information about swimmer’s ear. 
• Just for fun you can have your kids try this ear word find. 

Book: Perk Up Your Ears
Author: Vicki Cobb
Illustrator: Cynthia C. Lewis
Publisher: The Millbrook Press, Inc.
Publication Date: 2001
Pages: 29 pages
Grades: 1-5
ISBN: 0-7613-1704-x

Have you ever wondered how your five senses work and how they help you take in information around your world? Neil Ardley has written a book entitled The Science Book of the Senses that offers fun and simple experiments you can do to learn more about how your five senses work.

We all know that the five senses are extremely important in absorbing information about the world around us and are “your brain’s link to the world [we] live in.” The five senses include: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Ardley’s book gives students an extremely hands-on way to not only learn how the five senses actually work but to also understand ideas such as why we have two ears or how someone who can’t see can “read” even though they are missing the sense of sight. He starts off the book by first explaining what the five senses are and ways that our senses are often combined, for instance when playing basketball. In describing all the senses throughout the rest of the book, he provides ways students can build an ear or an eye using simple materials to actually see how they hear and see or creating taste and smell tests to show how they use their noses and taste buds to distinguish between different smells and tastes. The book also investigates questions such as:

• Why do we have two ears on either side of our head instead of just one?
• Why are two eyes better than one?
• Can you trick yourself into seeing two pictures one?
• Can you always believe your eyes?
• How do optical illusions work?
• How can you measure your reaction time?

An interesting part of the book is that after each sense is explained and tested, small excerpts on real world applications to the senses are included on the bottom right hand corner to help students understand another aspect of the senses. For instance, explaining that the black hole in the middle of the eye is the pupil which changes size to control the amount of light that the lens focuses on the retina.

Curriculum Connections
This book provides a fun and experimental way for children to learn how we can use our senses and corresponding sensing organs in order to learn about one’s surroundings. After reading and completing the experiments, students will investigate and understand that humans have senses that allow one to seek, find, take in and react or respond to the world around them using senses, organs, and sensory descriptors (in Virginia this could be corresponded to Science Standards of Learning K.2). Since this book is extremely hands on, it could be used in the classroom with supervision and students working together.

Additional Resources

• Here are some coloring worksheets for the five senses!
• Students can see how they can use all of their senses to figure out mysterious substances using this lesson plan!

Book: The Science Book of the Senses
Author: Neil Ardley
Publisher: Harcourt
Publication Date: 1992
Pages: 29 pages
Grades: 1-5
ISBN: 0152006141

Have you been looking for a book about sensory descriptors that will actively engage students?  Author and illustrator, Denise Fleming, meets this need  with her book Lunch.

Denise Fleming's Lunch is a clever story that teaches about the senses through a mouse's journey to eat lunch.  Using bright, bold illustrations, originally created in handmade paper, the pages of Lunch easily catch the eye of the reader.  Fleming plays off the mischievous nature of a hungry mouse who escapes the hole in the wall to fulfill his hunger.  The mouse begins using his nose to "sniff, sniff" around the table.  As the story progresses, the mouse encounters new fruits and vegetables to nibble.   Fleming plans the placement of the text in order to gain anticipation from the reader.  She begins "he ate a crisp white€”" and continues on the next page, "turnip."  Along with each short description, she includes half of an illustration of the food.  Using this technique, the reader is encouraged to guess what snack the mouse will eat next.  The reader can use the sensory descriptions of colors, texture, and taste to predict the upcoming fruit or vegetable.  As the mouse nibbles from one food to the next, he covers himself with particles of what he eats.  The story ends when the mouse finishes his lunch, covered with yellow corn on his nose, green peas on his tail, and purple grapes on his toes.  Fleming writes, "Then, he took a nap until€¦dinnertime!"  Similar to the first page, the last page shows the mouse coming out of his hole in the wall, sniffing for foods for dinner!

Curriculum Connections
Not only entertaining in its illustrations, the adventure in Lunch is equally useful as a concept book.  This book is great for students learning how to describe objects using their visual, tactile, tasting skills.   Fleming uses phrases such as "tender green€”peas," "tart blue€”berries," and "shiny red€”apples" in the text; using these adjectives, a child can learn how to describe using touch, taste, and sight.

This book perfectly correlates with instructing students in process skills and scientific investigation.  Specifically students in Kindergarten and first grade will benefit from Lunch.  Lessons using this book can emphasize sensory descriptors such as sweet, sour, hard, soft, bright, dull, and colors.  Students can also use their observation skills to predict the mouse's next snack in the story.  In Virginia, this book works nicely with the K.2b SOL and the 1.1f SOL.

Additional Resources

• Lesson Exchange offers daily activities for a week using Denise Fleming's book Lunch.  The site offers tips and techniques on how to read the story to children, including how to encourage students to interact with the book.  Another activity uses color words from the story, urging students to use their visual senses to describe the foods in the story.
• Props for Lunch Play.  This resource lists materials and directions on how to create props when reading or acting out Fleming's Lunch.  Access to the book is necessary to complete the props.
• Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills website provides a unique lesson plan useful in teaching process skills and differentiating between living and nonliving organisms.  This activity asks students to characterize and sort the fruits and vegetables in Lunch in terms of size, shape, color, and weight.

Book: Lunch
Author and Illustrator: Denise Fleming
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: March 15, 1998
Pages: 32
Grades: K-1
ISBN: 0805056963