Songs and Stories with Mary and Mike
Let's Use Our Five Senses
Episode 1 | 26m 41sVideo has Closed Captions
Inspired by the fall weather, Mary and Mike use their five senses to explore nature.
Mary and Mike are out and about, using their five senses to explore a city park. Mary collects leaves and watches the squirrels busily gathering acorns, while Mike eats snacks from his bag. Back in the studio, they find new ways to make music and even try some improvisation. Special guest, Ms. McCollough, shows us how to make our very own fizzy volcanoes. How will you be brave and curious today?
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Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Songs and Stories with Mary and Mike is a local public television program presented by VPM
Songs and Stories with Mary and Mike
Let's Use Our Five Senses
Episode 1 | 26m 41sVideo has Closed Captions
Mary and Mike are out and about, using their five senses to explore a city park. Mary collects leaves and watches the squirrels busily gathering acorns, while Mike eats snacks from his bag. Back in the studio, they find new ways to make music and even try some improvisation. Special guest, Ms. McCollough, shows us how to make our very own fizzy volcanoes. How will you be brave and curious today?
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪ Come play with me ♪ ♪ Won't you come play with me ♪ ♪ Come on, come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come play music with me ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ >>Welcome to songs and stories.
>>With Mary and Mike.
>>Where we tell the stories of music.
>>And we share the music of all people.
So, what are we doing today?
>>We've got so much learning to do.
Friends, we have a very special guest teacher with us today, Miss McCullough, and she is going to teach us all about our five senses and how we use those to explore, observe and notice the world around us.
>>That sounds like so much fun.
And we're also, we're gonna do an experiment, right?
>>Yes.
We're going to do some experimenting today.
(woman laughs) >>Well, that sounds like a lot of fun.
>>It is.
And Miss McCullough is here, so let's get to it.
>>Let's go meet her.
>>Miss McCullough, it is so wonderful to see you.
>>Hi.
It's so wonderful to see you.
>>Thanks for being here.
>>Yes.
We're so excited to learn with you today.
So, before we start learning, let's take a minute to hear a little bit about your story.
Can you tell us where you're from?
>>Sure.
I'm from Greensboro, North Carolina, so just south of Virginia.
>>So, we know that you're a teacher now, but what was it about teaching, what made you want to become a teacher?
>>So many things.
Honestly, I think I really liked watching kids start to understand things or make sense of what was going on around them.
I've always been really excited about curiosity and kids asking questions and I think for me, seeing children do that often is something that I could see myself doing for a long time.
So I became a teacher.
>>What's your favorite thing to teach?
>>Love that.
>>Science.
Hands down.
Or math.
I think both of those things lend themselves really well to kids asking questions and asking why certain things have to happen or why they happen in a certain order.
>>Love it.
And you're going to share something and teach something to us today.
>>I am.
I'm actually going to be talking about using your five senses to explore experiments, but before I do that, I would love it if you would follow an assignment that I have for you.
>>We have homework.
>>We've got homework.
(woman giggles) >>What do we have to do?
>>So, today's a beautiful fall day.
Please go outside and take a nature walk and just use the five senses you have to explore and see what's out there.
>>We can definitely do that.
>>We'll do it.
(woman laughs) >>Well, we will head to our nature walk and we will check in with you a little later so that you can share the science experiment with us.
>>Okay.
>>We'll see you soon.
>>Awesome.
>>Alrighty.
>>Let's explore nature!
>>Friends, Miss McCullough asked us to take a nature walk and use our five senses to explore this beautiful fall season.
>>I'm so excited.
>>I know!
So we're here at the city park to take our nature walk.
We're going to observe, we're going to explore and be curious and learn, so come on!
Come learn with us!
>>Let's go!
>>So, before we head off to our walk, let's first review our five senses, the five senses that we we all have to help us learn about our world.
So, our eyes help us see and observe.
With our nose, we smell.
(woman sniffs) With our ears, we hear all of the sounds.
And with our fingers, we touch.
With our mouths, we taste.
>>That's gonna be a tough one.
>>That might be a challenge on a nature walk.
(woman laughs) Oh well.
So I'll head off this way.
>>And I'll head this way.
>>And we will meet back at the big tree.
>>Perfect.
>>And we'll talk about everything we've learned.
>>Okay.
All right, let's go.
>>Let's go!
(woman giggles) As I'm walking, I'm using my ears and I can hear the leaves crunching underneath my feet.
That is one of my favorite sounds.
I think I'm gonna get down and pick some up for my basket.
(birds chirping) I am under this beautiful oak tree and I noticed the acorns on the ground, so I picked a few up and as I touched them, I noticed that the top texture is bumpy and the sides are smooth.
Two different textures on one acorn.
Pretty cool.
I think I'll put them in my basket.
(woman sniffs) (woman hums) As I've been walking around, I've been smelling that special smell of fall.
Now, I know you can't smell this through your screen, so I'll try to describe it for you.
It's kind of earthy and musky smelling, but even a little sweet sometimes.
It helps me to imagine that all of the plants are starting to hunker down for the winter.
(woman sniffs) It really is one of my favorite smells.
Now, I have heard the crunching leaves under my feet, I have touched the two different textures on those acorns and I'm (sniff) smelling that smell of fall.
So, I still need to see something and taste something.
That taste, that's gonna be a challenge.
(crunching) As I've been walking around today, I have seen so many squirrels scurrying around on the ground, dancing and jumping in the trees.
I think they're busy gathering acorns to store for the winter.
So, I used my eyes to see them.
That was the sense I needed.
So I heard crunching leaves underneath my feet, I touched the acorns and the two different textures on them, I smelled (sniff) the fall air with my nose and I used my eyes to see these funny little squirrels so busy on the ground and in the trees, but I still need taste.
Why don't we go check back in with Mike.
We'll meet him at the big tree and we'll see what he's been learning about today.
(woman giggles) ♪ Gray squirrel, gray squirrel ♪ ♪ Swish your bushy tail ♪ ♪ Gray squirrel, gray squirrel ♪ ♪ Swish your bushy tail ♪ (crunching) >>So how was your nature walk?
>>It was great.
I observed so many things and I got to use almost all of my senses.
I really struggled with taste.
I couldn't find anything I wanted to taste.
>>Oh yeah?
Gosh, I had tons of things to taste.
I bought lots of snacks with me.
I have my apple.
>>Oh my goodness!
>>And I brought my almonds.
(woman laughs) And I had some raisins.
>>Oh my gosh!
>>I brought my clementines.
>>You want one?
And I brought my drink.
>>Right.
Well, you've got taste covered.
Friends, we did it!
We used all five senses.
We used our ears to hear the crunching leaves, we used our fingers to touch the different textures on the acorns, we used our nose to (sniff) smell this crisp, beautiful fall air, we used our eyes to see those funny little squirrels and now, we have used our mouth to taste our snacks.
>>Perfect.
>>Well done.
>>Well as I was walking today, I saw leaves everywhere, leaves turning colors on the trees and leaves falling on the ground.
Is there a poem about leaves that you know?
>>Yes, there is!
"Five Little Leaves".
>>Perfect.
(woman giggles) >>And sitting under this beautiful tree is the perfect spot to speak that poem.
So let's do it all together.
Boys and girls, can you get your five leaves?
>>I'll get mine.
>>Let's count them together.
>>One.
>>One.
>>Two.
>>Two.
>>Three.
>>Three.
>>Four.
>>Four.
>>Five.
>>Five.
>>Nice job.
Now, put your leaves up high in a tree and here we go.
Five little leaves so happy and bright were dancing among the trees one night.
Along came a wind and blew through town (blows) and one little leaf came tumbling down.
Friends, I started with five and one leaf tumbled to the ground.
How many leaves are left up in my tree?
Four leaves.
Nice job.
Let's say the poem again.
Here we go.
Four little leaves so happy and bright were dancing among the trees one night.
Along came a wind and blew through town (blows) and one little leaf came tumbling down.
Now we need to do some math.
How many leaves are on the ground?
Two, which means how many are left up in the tree?
Three!
Three leaves.
Good job.
Here we go.
Ready?
Three little leaves so happy and bright were dancing among the trees one night.
Along came a wind and blew through town (blows) and one little leaf came tumbling down.
Friends, how many do we have on the ground?
Three on the ground, which means how many are still in the tree?
Two leaves.
Here we go.
Two little leaves so happy and bright were dancing among the trees one night.
Along came the wind and blew through town (blows) and one little leave came tumbling down.
Friends, how many leaves are on the ground?
So many!
One, two, three, four, four leaves on the ground, which means how many are left in the tree?
Just one.
Here we go.
One little leaf so happy and bright was dancing among the trees one night.
Along came a wind and blew through town (blows) and one little leaf came tumbling down.
Friends, how many leaves are on the ground?
All five.
You got it.
Which means there are no more leaves in the tree.
The wind blew them all down.
Were you counting those leaves with us?
Nice job.
(woman giggles) I love everything about this season.
>>Me too.
The leaves, I love the cool temperature.
>>I know.
And the smell.
I'm really feeling inspired to take a few things back from our walk into the studio and see if we can capture this fall feeling with music.
>>That sounds great.
Kind of like a musical experiment, right?
>>Exactly.
>>Yes.
>>Let's do it.
>>Awesome.
>>Let's make music!
>>Friends, let's do a musical experiment.
(woman hums) >>We have gathered some things.
I gathered some things on the walk and brought it into the studio.
>>And we grabbed some instruments from the studio.
>>Yes.
And we are going to try to capture the feel of fall with sound.
>>So what we're gonna do is improvise.
Can you say that word with me?
>>Improvise.
>>Improvise.
>>When a musician improvises, they compose the music right in the moment, right when it's happening.
It's not written down ahead of time.
>>No.
They use their ears and they take all of the sounds and then think about what can I add to this sound and right there in the moment, they do it.
It takes bravery.
It is a brave musician to improvise.
>>So we're gonna be brave.
We have never practiced this before.
>>We haven't.
>>This is our first time trying this improvisation.
>>Yes.
We really don't know what it's going to sound like.
(woman giggles) >>Well, are you ready to do it?
>>I am.
Yes.
I'm gonna get us started with the crunching leaves.
(leaves crunch) >>Maybe I'll do some shuffling feet.
(leaves crunch) (scraping) (bowls ring) (upbeat music) (woman giggles) That was really fun.
>>That was really fun.
Now I've got leaves coming out of my sweater.
>>That's great.
>>That was really nice.
I liked how you were kind of switching some instruments around.
>>I just was listening to the sound.
I really liked at the ending when you started making the leaves a lot quieter.
I felt like you were kind of walking away is what I heard in the song.
>>Nice.
It's amazing how much the sound of the crunching leaves really gives this whole feeling of fall.
>>I love it.
>>I do too.
Friends, how will you be a brave musician today?
Will you use your five senses to explore, notice, observe and then put it all together to improvise your own sound?
(woman giggles) Get to it.
>>Hi!
I see you're back from your nature walk.
>>We are.
>>We had a great time.
>>We did.
>>It was awesome.
>>We even brought some things back into the studio with us.
>>We brought our leaves and we have some acorns we found.
>>And we have been making music with these things we found.
>>That's amazing!
I'm glad you got to use your five senses and explore.
>>We did.
So, Miss McCullough, what are you getting ready to share with us?
>>I'm really excited.
So today, we're going to be looking at creating our own sort of mini volcanoes in a jar and we're going to look and see how that happens and use our five senses to explore some of why that might be happening.
>>Wow.
Mini volcanoes.
>>That sounds awesome.
>>This sounds awesome.
I can't wait to see it!
Let's do it.
>>Hi friends.
My name is Miss McCullough and I'm going to be working with you today on using our five senses during an awesome science experiment.
I hope you like science experiments because I love them and we'll be using these five senses to help us see, notice and wonder about what's going on during the whole experiment.
I'm gonna talk you through it and we're gonna be brave scientists today as we work through how things react.
So today, what you're going to need to know first is, what are the five sense?
Our five senses are sight, so the things you can see with your eyes like color, hearing, so what you can hear with your ears, the sounds, the noises like a crash or a thud or a fizz, our smell, so what you can smell with your nose like things that smell really sweet, things that smell really sour, even things that smell kind of stinky, and our tongue, so our taste, what we can taste with our tongues, so things that taste sweet and sour, lastly, our touch, so our sense of how things feel whether they feel bumpy or soft or powdery.
We're gonna talk about all of those things today and they're gonna help us to wonder about what might happen and to notice what's going on during the experiment because noticing is what keeps us curious.
So, you will need a few materials.
The first thing you'll need is baking soda.
Then you'll need a cup.
I used the one-thirds cup to measure.
A glass container or plastic container, something clear and small so that you can practice this experiment at home.
Some vinegar.
And last but not least, you'll need a place to get a little messy.
So I would suggest that you also have a paper towel and a place to get messy.
You'll need some parent permission for this.
So, the experiment today is one of my favorite experiments.
What we're going to do today is we are going to wonder, which means ask some questions about, what happens when we put baking soda and vinegar together.
We are going to use every sense as we walk through it.
So, the first thing that we need to know is that we need to go to the place where we can be messy now to do this.
So what you're going to do is you're going to put your baking soda in the cup.
Then after you put your baking soda in the cup, what you're gonna wanna do is you're gonna wanna shake it in there.
You might even want to give it a smell.
So I'm actually gonna smell the baking soda before I put it in.
I don't really smell anything.
It doesn't smell like anything to me, but maybe your nose is different.
We all smell different things.
You're gonna shake it into the container that you have and just look at it.
Something else I notice, something I see with my eyes, is that the powder is really white, but it stayed powder when I put it in the container.
The next thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna look.
What do you see about the vinegar?
So I notice that this container of vinegar is really darkish yellow.
And I'm gonna put the vinegar in the one-thirds cup.
Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna pour that vinegar into the cup.
When I smelled the vinegar, it definitely has a smell.
It smells really strongly like something sour, something bitter maybe.
And then what I'm going to notice is that there's some little tiny bubbles at the top.
I don't know if you notice that.
When you do the experiment and you put the vinegar in, I want you to notice what happens.
What happens when you put the vinegar in there.
(fizzing) You're going to use your sight to look and see.
With my ears, I can hear that the whole thing is fizzing.
I notice with my eyes that it's bubbling to the top and I can hear it bubbling.
I can see it bubbling over.
So now I have an answer.
So by seeing, noticing and wondering, I'm able to see how adding vinegar to baking soda makes it just explode all the way to the top.
(fizzing) That's wild!
So just by being curious and asking a question, by being brave enough to do this experiment, I was able to see with my eyes, to hear with my ears today, to smell with my nose and to touch some things with my fingers.
We didn't get to use our sense of taste and I would not suggest it for this experiment, but friends, we were scientists today and we practiced using our five senses to see, hear, smell, touch and think about more of the world around us.
(fizzing) >>Miss McCullough, we loved your lesson and watching the explosion!
(woman giggles) >>It was really fun, right?
>>It was so fun.
>>That's great.
So if we wanna do that experiment at home, are there any suggestions you have for setting it up?
>>So as you saw from the experiment, it's a little messy.
(woman laughs) I would suggest that you put down some kind of placemat or a paper towel.
Suggested place of experiment is probably the kitchen just because the materials tend to go everywhere and I would say if you want really good explosions, make sure that you have a glass container like a jar like the one I used or a cup that is thinner and thins out just because that kind of pressure is what makes it explode.
>>Cool.
>>Nice.
We definitely have to try it.
>>We will.
(woman laughs) >>Wonderful.
Well, Miss McCullough, it has been such a pleasure to have you with us today.
>>It's been great to be with you all.
>>Thank you so much.
>>Thank you.
>>And we hope to see you again soon.
>>Great!
>>Bye!
>>Bye!
>>Bye!
>>You are a beautiful learner.
>>Oh wow.
>>That was so much fun.
>>We have been brave musicians, we have been brave scientists.
>>We went on a nature walk.
>>We did.
>>We improvised.
>>I know!
We've done so much.
We have learned so many new things.
And friends, remember what we always say when we learn new things.
Repeat after us.
I am brave.
>>I am curious.
>>I am strong because I can do hard things.
>>I am a beautiful learner.
>>I am a beautiful learner.
>>Yes you are, friends.
And we will see you next time.
I'm gonna get my leaves going.
>>Do it.
(upbeat music) ♪ Come play with me ♪ ♪ Won't you come play with me ♪ ♪ Come on, come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come play music with me ♪ ♪ We're gonna sing, yes ♪ ♪ And we're gonna dance ♪ ♪ We're gonna learn to play some instruments ♪ ♪ Come play with me ♪ ♪ Won't you come play with me ♪ ♪ Come on, come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come play music with me ♪ ♪ We're gonna sing, yes ♪ ♪ And we're gonna dance ♪ ♪ We're gonna learn to play some instruments ♪ ♪ Come play with me ♪ ♪ Won't you come play with me ♪ ♪ Come on, come on, come on ♪ ♪ Come play music with me ♪
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