A while ago I came across one of the coolest ideas for a garden. A sensory garden.

The senses go beyond the traditional five senses that you learned as a kid. Sure, you have to appease sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch. But, there are also the vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive senses. Vestibular means a sense of balance. Proprioceptive means a sense of self in space. Interoceptive means internal sensations, such as knowing when hungry, thirsty, needing to go to the bathroom, etc.

This fantastic post on Hartley's Life with 3 Boys teachers you how to easily create a sensory garden at home, to fulfill all of these senses. I would love to see such things being implemented in schools, as well. What a great sensorial project!

What do you think?

I'm trying to get the children engaged in the sensorial area again, by working on various extensions. On a whim yesterday, I pulled out the circle tray and showed the children how to make a snowman by tracing three circles on paper. One of the three year-olds immediately got it out after my lesson, and proceeded to make three different snowmen on paper. When I put her in the car at the end of the morning, that's all she would talk about.

This afternoon, some of the Extended Day decided to try their own designs, using other trays. One little girl got out the polygon drawer. She turned the octagon into a stop sign, and then worked on tracing and pinpricking all of the other shapes. One of the boys got out the rectangle tray. To my dismay, he turned his creation into a Transformer, and showed us how many different ways he could fold it and change it. I give him credit for creativity, but I'm not a fan of Transformers.

I am hoping that this newfound desire to pinprick and trace and cut out shapes will expand to other areas. I also hope the younger children pick up on it and start to try it, themselves.