(cheerful piano music)
♪ You are the best you the world will see. ♪
Come along now and share you with me.
Let's learn something new and share feelings too.
Cause these are the things to do to be the best you ♪
(cheerful piano music)
(magical chime)
- Hello, Possum.
Hello friends.
- Hi Auntie Lena!
- Mm mm, something smells good.
- Oh, Mama Possum is cooking slug stew for dinner.
It's a brand new recipe.
- Ooh. I'm sure you're gonna love that.
- Mmhmm, I'm excited to try it.
- Do I smell onions and garlic too?
- Yes. How did you know those ingredients
are in slug stew Auntie Lena?
- I cook with garlic and onions all the time.
I could smell them from a mile away.
- Wow. You must have a better nose than me.
- Well, maybe not actually from a mile away,
but I can usually tell when someone is cooking with them
by their unique smell.
- Oh, well they smell and taste so yummy.
- I agree Possum.
Garlic and onion are great savory ingredients.
- Well, what does savory mean Auntie Lena?
- Savory means the opposite of sweet.
- So not like bug berry pie.
- Exactly. Pie usually has sugar,
which makes it taste sweet.
Food can also taste salty, sour, and bitter.
- Oh, I didn't know there were so many different words
to talk about food.
- Yeah, there are many more too.
- Really?
- Yes. Miss Nyema can teach us some of them.
Let's go to Nurturing Roots Farm
and see what she's making today with our friends.
(magical chime)
- [Both] Hi friends.
- I'm Miss Nyema.
- And I'm Madison.
- And today we are going to make ants on a log.
Have you ever had that snack?
- No.
- Well, we're about to try it,
but before we get into that
do you know what all of our senses are?
(Madison laughing)
Well, maybe we can think of some together.
What do we do with these?
- Hear?
- Yep. Hearing.
What about this?
- We smell.
- Can you guess another one?
- Tasting
- Taste.
Mm, we get to taste something today.
(Madison giggles)
- Looking.
- See, yes. And then we have one more.
Can you think of what that is?
(Madison giggles)
- Feeling?
- Yes, feeling or touching.
You're right.
And today we are gonna make something that we
can actually taste and we're gonna touch it
so we can feel it.
Do you know what this plant is?
- Celery.
- Celery. And we were able to get this from the farm.
Right? Was it exciting harvesting it?
- [Madison] Mhmm.
- All right. So I'm gonna cut small pieces for us.
Tell me when you think the size is good.
- [Madison] That's good.
- Okay
So this is a snack that's really easy.
Can even try it at home if you want.
All right, cut a little more.
All right.
So would you like to taste everything
before we make our treat?
- Yes.
- Okay, so maybe I'll grab a piece of celery from here
and then we both can try a little piece.
Ready?
(Madison and Nyema chewing)
It's strong.
Maybe we can make it taste a little better
with some more stuff.
How about let's put a raisin on top.
You wanna grab one?
Taste a little better?
- Yeah.
- Now how about sunflower butter?
Wanna dip in and then maybe we can taste it.
Mmm, you like it?
- Yeah, kind of.
- So what do you think if we put all three of them together?
Let's try it.
All right, so grab a celery,
and you just have to make enough of a trail
so that your ants, or your raisins, can sit on top.
Ooh, nice.
You're doing a great job.
- Yeah.
- All right, so I'll put our plate here
and then we can get raisins.
Put 'em on there, like a trail,
like they're walking down the log.
That's a beautiful one.
All right, so maybe we should just taste it.
What do you think?
- Yeah.
- Okay, you wanna grab yours?
Here we go.
Nice right?
Cool. So how does celery taste?
- Like a cucumber and water mixed together.
- Oh, that is a good way to describe it.
Is it crunchy crunchy?
Yes.
What about the sunflower butter?
What texture did that feel like?
Was it smooth?
- Yeah.
- And buttery.
How did those raisins taste?
- Soft and sweet.
- And really good. I'm gonna get one too.
So really good snack and an easy way
to put 'em all together.
And we got to use all our senses to do it.
Thanks for joining us friends.
- [Madison and Nyema] Bye.
- Possum. Didn't that look delicious?
- Yes it did.
And now I'm hungry and even more excited to eat slug stew.
(Auntie Lena laughing)
- Have you ever heard the saying
that you eat with your eyes first?
- What? No. That's silly.
We see with our eyes, not eat with them.
- You're right about that.
But what the saying means is
that sometimes we decide whether or not we'll
like how food taste by the way that it looks.
- Oh, well, like when Turtle first tried worm sketti, well
she thought the worms looked too slimy
and that they would taste bad.
And then she took her first bite
and ended up eating the whole bowl.
(Auntie Lena laughing)
- That's why it's important to use all our senses.
Do you know how many different senses we have Possum?
- Yes, I do. Five. I learned them all at school.
- Well, can you name all five senses?
- Mmhmmm, there's smell and taste, sight, hearing and touch.
(Auntie Lena laughing)
- Correct. You have a great memory Possum.
- Auntie Lena, are there more fun words
like savory to talk about our other senses?
- Of course Possum.
I know a story that can give us some examples.
Would you like to hear it?
- Oh yes, I would.
- The story is called A Wave Came
Through Our Window by Zetta Elliot.
Let's go to Child Strive in Everett
and listen with our friends.
(bells chiming)
- [Mr. Tariq and Lawford] Hi friends.
- My name is Mr. Tariq.
- And my name is Sir Lawford.
- And we are at Child Strive in Everett.
And today we are going to read
A Wave Came Through Our Window
by Zetta Elliot and illustrated by Charity Russell.
Last night a wave came through our window.
Not a splashy salty wave, not a greedy hungry wave
that tugs at your ankles as you run up the beach.
It was a different kind of wave.
In the summer, we sleep with our windows open wide.
It gets real hot in our apartment,
so Benny and I sleep in our underwear.
Papa tells us to lie still,
but hot nights make you feel itchy inside.
Benny and I toss and turn.
We kick off our sheets and slide our hands under our pillows
'cause that's where the cool is at.
The air in our bedroom feels warm and thick
like Grandma's split pea soup.
The fan on our dresser turns and churns the air,
but doesn't cool the room at all.
Benny and I hold up our hands high
and wait for the first wave to come through our window.
Sometimes it comes right away.
Sometimes we have to wait.
I spread my fingers wide apart and look out at the moon.
It's bright and round like a big white zero
in the middle of the dark blue sky.
Benny's arms aren't as strong as mine.
She gets tired of waiting and starts to whine.
"When's the wave going to come?"
"Shh," I tell her, "It's coming now, I can feel it."
Sounds and smells pour through the window,
filling the shadowy corners of our room.
What do you see?
- I see that she can touch the moon and Benny can't.
- Can't quite reach it?
- Yeah.
- But she can hold it with like the tips of her fingers.
- Yes.
- That's pretty cool.
- Yeah, it looks like she is like grabbing the moon.
- Benny and I float in the darkness,
our beds like islands in the sea of night.
The wave washes over us, stirring the air
and sharing secrets from our neighbor's homes.
"I smell incense" says Benny.
"That must be Meroë."
Meroë lives right above us.
She burns smokey incense and lights candles at night.
The air in our room smells spicy and sweet,
like sandalwood and vanilla.
Benny and I lie still and listen for Meroë's special bell.
After it rings, we can hear Meroë chanting softly
while she meditates.
Then a new wave comes through the window,
bringing fresh smells and sounds.
Cool blue notes slide out of a saxophone
and seep through the screen.
Mr. Berkowitz is out on his fire escape,
listening to jazz music while he smokes a cigar.
Benny says, "Oh, yeah," and snaps her fingers to keep time.
The music makes me wanna scat.
"Beboppalubadoodubaweewallabippitybeepadingdonghey."
(Lawford laughing)
I think I sound just like Ella Fitzgerald,
but Benny still cracks up.
The night air swirls around us
before draining out the window once more.
But like the tide, within seconds, it comes rushing back in.
I take a deep breath and quickly plug my nose.
Yuck. Benny puts her pillow over her face.
Mrs. Pinkett in the building
behind us is frying up some fish.
Escovitch fish tastes delicious,
but it sure smells kind of funky right now.
The cats in the back alley howl with hunger.
Benny takes her pillow off her face and joins in.
We both screech like ally cats
until Mama hollers at us to cut it out.
What do you see there?
- I see the fish smell everywhere
and it's going in their noses and it smells really bad.
- Floats all over.
- Yeah.
- Makes you wanna say pee-ew.
- Eww!
- Benny and I are glad when the fish smell goes away.
The next wave that comes through our window
brings air that is rippling with rhythm.
Anna and Felix Lopez live below us.
They're newlyweds.
We can't understand the Spanish words they're singing,
but we know that all the laughter means they're having fun.
"Mira, mira" cries Benny.
She jumps up on her bed and tries to dance the merengue.
I laugh so hard, my ribs start to ache.
Papa sticks his head in our room
and Benny bounces back into bed.
"You two should be asleep by now,"
Papa says with warning eyes.
Benny and I giggle and close our eyes while we wait
for the next wave to come in.
For a little while, there is just silence.
Benny starts breathing heavily
and I can tell she's falling asleep.
And then, just as my eyes are about to close,
the softest wave slips into our room.
Benny rolls over and looks at me.
"What's that?" she asks in a whisper.
I get out of bed and go over to the window.
There is a man sitting on the fire escape
of the building behind ours.
He's holding up something to his lips.
Benny crawls out of bed and stands beside me.
"Is he kissing it?"
I nudge Benny to make sure she's awake.
"That's just how you play it," I tell her.
The man's slender brown fingers dance along the flute.
Whispery notes rise up into the night sky
and then drift down into the alley like snow.
Benny and I shiver and go back to bed.
It's still hot in our bedroom,
but we are ready to sleep now.
Benny starts snoring almost right away.
I hear my parents' laughter coming from the living room.
A plane rumbles in the sky as it flies overhead.
The moon still looks like a big white zero
in the middle of the dark blue sky.
I yawn and close my eyes.
The end.
- [Mr. Tariq and Lawford] Thanks for joining us friends.
Bye-bye.
(magical chime)
- Wow. There was so much happening outside in that story.
- There sure was.
Smokey incense, whispery flute notes
and funky smelling fish fry.
- I don't think I could fall asleep
like Benny and her sister.
- Well why not Possum?
- Because there were too many fun things going on.
Well, when I go to sleep in my tree, it's always quiet.
- Well, the girls were probably used to the different sounds
and the smells in their neighborhood.
They used their senses to calm down and relax.
Do you remember when we talked about quiet time?
- Yes. And we learned how to take deep breaths.
- That's right.
We also talked about how music can be soothing
during quiet time, even though it isn't actually quiet.
- Oh yeah.
- Listening to music uses our sense of hearing.
We can use our other senses to soothe ourselves
in different ways, like Benny and her sister.
- How Auntie Lena?
- Let's find out with Mr. Damon and our friends
at Children's Museum of Tacoma.
(magical chime)
- Hi friends, I'm Mr. Damon.
And today we are here at the Children's Museum of Tacoma.
And today we'll be making slime
and focusing on the five senses.
Sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
So to make slime today, we will be focusing on,
it looks like we have about five ingredients here.
We'll be using white glue, one tablespoon of baking soda,
two tablespoons of the saline solution,
a couple of drops of food coloring, as well as some glitter.
All right, so let's get this project underway.
First we're gonna start with eight ounces of white glue.
Pour this in.
Gonna kind of help it along here by kind of squeezing it.
And next we're going to use some food coloring.
And I think for this project,
I think blue's my favorite color.
so I think I'm gonna go with a couple drops of blue.
(cheerful music)
One, two.
Wow. And at this point, you should definitely be using one
of your senses with your sight.
And this is looking
like a beautiful art project as it is already.
So next we're going to add a couple of shakes of glitter.
(cheerful music)
Okay, so now we will be mixing it.
As you start to see the blue was starting to mix.
And I think I want to add a couple
of more sparkles and begin to mix that in.
And actually, as you're mixing this,
do you actually hear the sound of the glue
and the dye and the glitter all coming together and forming
to what looks like to become, to look like slime?
So next I will be adding saline, two tablespoons of saline.
Oh, listen to that sound.
Mixing that in.
And as well as one tablespoon of baking soda.
As we begin to mix that together,
I'm mixing this, it's starting to solidify
and do something very interesting.
And solidify means it starts to turn into a solid.
So all the liquids we put
in are starting to turn into a solid form
and it's definitely starting to look like slime here.
And now, we really get to use our sense
of touch as I go in here and pull this out,
as we really begin to mix this up.
And it works in my hands.
And you start to see this, oh.
I'm feeling feeling a sticky texture,
but the more and more I work it,
I can tell that it's starting to solidify again,
and come into a solid form.
As it looks now, it's completely solidified.
And we have a nice little ball
of slime that you can touch and feel.
You can squeeze it, you can hear it as it pops
and the air kind of moves through it.
Visually, you can see the shimmers
of sparkles coming through.
And then obviously we added that food coloring
to kind of make it a blue color.
And now that you've made your slime, you can play with it,
kind of stretch it, pull it, do different things with it.
And when you're done with it, you can put it
in a nice bag like this,
save it for another day.
Well, I hope you had a great time
making slime with us today.
And I hope you think about the five senses
as you make yours.
Thanks for joining us friends.
- [Possum] It's time for Movement Minute.
(jumping sounds)
- Hey friends, it's Mr. Doug again.
So for today's Movement Minute, I wanna share one
of my favorite exercises, and it's called the Spider-Man.
Okay, you ready?
Okay, so the first thing I need you to do is stand up tall.
Then I want you to put your right leg out, squat down,
and reach your right elbow
to the inside of your right knee.
Just like this.
And then I want you to go all the way
down to your foot, just like that.
Can you do that?
And then at that point, take a deep breath, let it out,
and then take your right arm
and reach for the sky, just like that.
And then we're gonna go back and then come back up.
Now do your left leg and do it over again.
Start at the inside of your knee,
go down to your foot, take a deep breath,
reach up for the sky, and then come back down.
Friends, that's the Spider-Man.
Have a great day.
(bells chiming)
- Possum, now that we've learned so many different ways
to talk about our senses, let's use them.
- Oh, okay. How Auntie Lena?
- Well, first name one thing you see.
- I see a bright blue sky.
- And now name one thing you feel and one thing you taste.
- Feel. Oh, my soft fuzzy fur.
And I taste...
(Possum licking his lips)
Ooh, a little bit of peanut butter from my snack earlier.
- What about one thing that you hear?
- Um, you?
(Auntie Lena laughing)
- Well that counts.
And now, last sense. What's one thing you smell?
(Possum sniffing the air)
- Oh, savory slug stew.
Oh yeah.
I need to find out if it's ready.
- Well, I'm sure the stew will taste best
when it's fresh and hot.
- Well, I'll go get you some.
- Oh, well, thank you Possum.
And friends, thank you for taking time
to look, listen and learn with us today.
And remember, you are the best you
that the world will ever see.
- Bye for now.
- Bye.
(bells chiming)
- [Auntie Lena] Please stay tuned after the credits
for Auntie Lena's parent tip.
(upbeat music)
- Savory soups. Warm and fuzzy blankets.
Loud crashing waves on the beach.
In today's episode, Auntie Lena and Possum
show us there are so many fun ways
to talk about our senses.
Senses allow us to enjoy and celebrate the world around us.
And for early learners, the ability to name what they
see, smell, taste, feel and hear is foundational
to how they understand and navigate new experiences.
However, sometimes all those new experiences
can be overwhelming.
The sisters in today's story were used to all
of the sounds and smells that come with living in the city.
Maybe your little one is too, or perhaps they're more
like Possum, and need peace and quiet to get to sleep.
Whatever the case may be for your child,
learning different ways to use their senses
is an important skill.
It builds self-awareness
and can help them self-sooth or calm down.
You can encourage your child to observe their senses
by asking five simple questions like Auntie Lena.
What's one thing you see?
What's one thing you hear?
What's one thing you taste, and one thing you feel?
And finally, one thing you smell.
By asking these questions
you give your child the opportunity to share a small glimpse
into how they experience the big world around them.