B B B Broccoli !!!

     Last week the letter of the week was B. I mentioned in my previous post, "What's in the Bag?",  I am trying some new ideas to help the kids with their letter recognition retention. We followed up "What's in the bag?" with K and Bells each taking a bag home ( on different days) and bringing it back with some B items. The kids really seemed to enjoy getting to contribute their own items from home to our circle time.  
    I was feeling particularly adventurous one day and decided to extend on the lesson and add in some sensory stuff. What better way than Broccoli? It was perfect! I would be able to let them use almost all of their senses to experience the word broccoli and in turn help them remember the letter B.

     It started out just as I pictured the lesson going. We marched ourselves into the kitchen and sat to get ready for the lesson. The kids were so excited to be in the kitchen, because I almost never let them in there. I was excited because I was positive THIS was going to go over just as well as the pepper experiment had (see The Pepper Experiment ) and the kids would fall in love with fresh broccoli and ask for it at snacks and meals. Okay, the pepper experiment wasn't that awesome, but I can aim high right?

It was going great! We all felt the broccoli. It was bumpy(Yet another B word opportunity). It was fun taking turns feeling the different parts of the broccoli. It was green and had a leaf on it! 

We took turns smelling it. With the florets on and then...

     We cut the top off to see how it smelled. The kids were having a blast as you can see from the pictures! Next, we washed and dried the florets to get ready for the big finale. The tasting!

The kids were ready with fresh broccoli in hand. They were so excited I had to make them wait so I could take this picture.

And THEN...

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This was pretty much the response I got from all three. Bells actually spit hers on the floor. Ruby walked hers to the sink. I had to run to give K a napkin to scrape his mouth out. He has a very sensitive gag reflex and I did not want to have to clean that up too!

So, I guess the next time, maybe we'll try cooked broccoli?  Or maybe give them some Ranch dressing? Hmmm. Ohh well. I guess I can't win 'em all!