Age of the Senses

For our 4th week at the O-School we explored how to use our five senses to recall memories. I passed around different objects to students that represented the five senses, a seashell (touch), a toy pumpkin (taste), scented candle melts (smell), orange binoculars (see), and on my phone, I played sounds of a playground (hear). We told interesting stories from when we were younger.

Together we read the poem “When I Was Six,” by Aimee Nezhukumatahil. In her poem Nezukumatahil uses sensory details to describe how earliest memories from when she was six years old. My mother waters the tomato & pepper plants/I steal drinks from the penny-taste of the garden hose/ I am six and I am laughing with a mouth full of cashews/ I think nuts is the funniest word I have ever heard/ I break all of my mother’s lipsticks & glue them back together. Students enjoyed the poem and remembered doing some of the same things when they were younger, especially the line about gluing the mother’s, broken lipsticks back together, I admitted to doing that too when I was a kid.

Below are the poems and drawings of students’ memories when they were younger. I also want to share a beautiful song that I was introduced to by one student from The Dreamers Group.