Five Senses

I teach each kindergarten science unit to all four full day kindergarten classes. I have done two of the four units so far. I started with the five senses and I wanted to share some of the fun things we did. I did centers for three of the senses on one Friday and centers for the other two senses on the next Friday. I introduced the senses with the big book My Five Senses by Aliki. 

 

We started with hearing, sight and smell. I put many different items (including cotton balls) in cookie tins that I decorated. The students had to shake them and make predictions based on only what they heard. For the sense of sight I put out a bunch of picture books and textured puzzle pieces at a table for the students to look at using magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes so they could see how sight can be altered. Lastly I bought some fruit scented playdough for the learning store and had the students form the fruit they thought the play dough smelled like.

The following Friday we concentrated on taste and touch. For the taste center I made a giant tongue with a red poster board. I labeled the different taste buds on the tongue using their names and a picture (i.e. I wrote sour on a lemon cut out).  The kids then sorted pictures of foods into how they taste (sweet, sour, or salty-I didn't use bitter because I thought it may be hard for them to sort considering I don't know many foods that are classified bitter myself!) For the food pictures I bought a food pyramid mini bulletin board aid. 

 

For the sense of the touch the students played a super fun game called Ned's Head. The students draw cards and have to stick their hands either in Ned's ears or nostrils and try to find the item shown on the card using only their sense of touch. They had a blast with this game!

I needed one extra center so I also put out a bunch of Mr. Potato Heads for the students to play with since I used him to review the senses before we starting the second set of centers.