Teaching Children About The Five Senses

Five Senses

See • Hear • Smell • Touch • Taste

From the time babies are born they are learning about the world around them using their senses.

Exposing children to different textures, tastes, smells, sounds, and sights helps them learn about what’s going on in this great big world we live in.

When you are teaching children about the five senses it’s a good idea to break the lessons down into segments. Take a day to go over the sense words and associated body parts. Then, spend a day/lesson exploring each sense, spreading the lessons out over 5 or 6 days.

This post focuses on teaching children the names of the five senses and which part of the body is associated with each sense.

Let’s get started…

Introductory Activity 

A good way to get the lesson started and introduce the children to the five senses is to play a Five Senses song. A song can set the stage for sense exploration by keeping things fun and light. Hearing the words in a rhythmic way and singing along helps children remember the different sense words. This is a great tool to use for ESL learners. Children can listen over and over, which will help them remember how each word is pronounced.

When the song is playing, point to each part of the body as the words are spoken. Encourage the children to do the same thing. Explain to them they are using their sense of hearing to listen to the song.

Update to this Post:  Five Senses Video

Click Arrow on player below to hear
Billy Gorilly’s Five Senses song

[mp3-jplayer tracks=”Five Senses@http://billygorilly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Five_Senses_Sample_byBillyGorilly.mp3″ captions=”by Billy Gorilly;”]

Buy Five Senses song here  Amazon • CdBaby •  iTunes

 

 

Lyrics to Five Senses song

You’ve got one, two, three, four, five senses
Making sense of the world in a logical way
One, two, three, four, five senses
Telling you what’s around you everyday
Not one, two, three, or four
You’ve got five senses
You can see, hear, smell, touch, taste

The first sense we’re gonna talk about is the sense of sight
Use your eyes to recognize the light of day or the dark at night

The second sense that we’ll talk about is the sense of hearing now don’t you know
Use your ears to hear far and near, rockin’ music or voices whispering soft and low

The third sense we’re gonna talk about is the sense of smell
Use your nose, cause it always knows if it’s rotten bad or fresh and swell

The fourth sense to talk about is the sense of touch
Use the skin that you’re sitting in to tell hot or cold, smooth or rough

The fifth sense that we’ll talk about is the sense of taste
Use your tongue, when you’re old or young,
To know sour lemon or sweet chocolate cake

 

Coloring Activity

 

Download and Print  Five Senses coloring page

 

Using a simple coloring page, like the one below, introduces the five sense words to the children. Discuss the different senses and which part of the body is associated with each sense. Point to each body part and have the children say which sense is associated with it. The coloring page also helps the children learn how to read and spell the sense words.

Make A Five Senses Book

A Five Senses book is not just a fun craft, it also gives kids something to look at and refer to when they are not in class.

You can use a printable book template like the one in the picture, found in the Rockin’ the SchoolHouse Printables, Vol. 2 eBook. If you use a template simply print out the pages, fold, and staple together. The children can get right to work attaching textured paper, making and attaching a rice shaker, adding a scent to the sense of smell page,  or adhereing a piece of foil so they can see their reflection.They will also learn which part of the tongue tastes sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. The template comes with instructions.

If you don’t want to use a template, no worries, make a five senses book from scratch. Give each child 3 sheets of paper, fold the paper in half, and staple together.

Help each child write the title “My Five Senses” on the cover. Have them decorate the cover with pictures they cut out from magazines or they can draw their own.

Help each student as needed to write a sense name on each page  (Smell, Taste, See, Hear, Touch)

Cut pictures out of magazines of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, and fingers and have the children paste them in their books. Let the kids draw pictures of  things they like to eat, see, or smell. Adhere textured paper/items on the touch page. Think velvet, sandpaper, bumpy paper, or fuzzy fabric. Have them trace their fingers and glue the different textured paper/item to each finger.

Encourage the children to flip through the pages in their book and talk about the different senses and which part of the body is associated with each sense.

The mini-books give the children something to refer back to. At the beginning of each lesson have the children turn to the page in their book that talks about the sense being explored that day.

 

More Five Senses Activities

• Hear Set up a listening station with different small instruments or make  shakers with different things inside (beans, rice, broken crayons etc.). Have the children listen to the different sound each shaker makes.
• Touch Set up plastic boxes with different textured items in them. Something soft, fuzzy, grainy, wet, gooey, and smooth.
• Smell Set up a smelling station – Have the kids smell each item, then have them close their eyes and try to tell what the different smells are. Items you can use might be something like a cut lemon, orange, onion, banana, cinnamon sticks, peppermint oil on a cotton ball, flowers, or herbs like rosemary.
• Sight Use a non-breakable mirror to show the children their reflection. Turn out the lights. Explain that we use our sense of sight to tell the difference between light and dark.
• Taste Set up a tasting station. Use things like lemon wedges, pickles, potato chips, grapefruit, apple, or raisins. After the children taste the food talk about the different flavors sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. Have them close their eyes and taste the food again to see if they can determine what they’re tasting.

Five Senses Audio and Printable Resources:
Rockin’ the SchoolHouse, Vol. 2

 

> Visit our website for more early educational songs and activities at  BillyGorilly.com

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That’s All For Now…

There are so many fun things you can do to help children learn about the five senses. I can’t add them all here or this blog post would be a mile long.

Until next time…

 

Keep Smiling, Singing, and Learning
And You Can Make Everyday
Simply Splendiferous!

 and the Billy Gorilly Crew