5 Senses Theme Activities

hello everybody it is Jackie from pocket of preschool and tonight we are going to talk all about five senses unit or study depending on how you do it so want you to tell me in the comments apparently did not put enough tape on that one want you to tell me in the comments do you do five senses like theme or do you do it like in like within theme like do you do like maybe don't know like birthday party or birthday theme and then you do five senses during that as kind of your science study that's usually typically what what did when was teaching kind of did five senses within different themes that went well with those with the five sentences like things that it usually involved some some yummy food so tell me in the comments just so you know all the links are there so if you want link to the five senses unit that is there eight so we're gonna jump right in so why do we do five senses study so we do have five senses study kind of at the beginning of the year and you want to do it again to teach students how to be scientist and kind of what tools scientists use because they use their eyes to observe their nose to smell their mouth The Taste which you can also talk about when it is safe to taste and when it is safe to not taste we talk about how we use our hands think set all five so yeah so we use our eyes our nose our mouth our ears and our hands to discover and learn about the world around us so depending on how you do it you can do five senses couple ways you can have you can do like each sense like for couple days or like each fence for week it's totally up to you so I'm going to show you couple different activities well not couple I'm surrounded have think three activities for each sense and I'm going to show you my science table set up to go with that apparently need more tape on that if it falls again we're just gonna let it go so this is my science table kind of think of my science centers having two different parts this is kind of the science table where we do all the investigations related to our study whether it's apples or five senses or pumpkins or leaves or ramps whatever it is so that's kind of the investigation at the table and then have my shelf over here that you cannot see and that has all of our sciency things so it has all the magnets and the shells and the rocks and the tubes and the puzzles all those things so all the things that you have out all the time the investigation table kind of changes with our unit of study so typically set it up to where we do each sense for couple days or maybe week depending on how long I'm doing study for so have it set up for the sense of hearing so can hear with my ears so have book about hearing have art hearing investigation and then up here which that one fell down too oops have some vocabulary word words and have them with pictures again we want to have those the vocabulary words with pictures because our kids can't read yet but again lots and lots of real photos like see with my eyes smell with my nose taste with my tongue hear with my ears touch with my hands and then we have some journal pages so that way if they want to draw or scribble about what they're discovering but let me show you our sense of hearing investigation so in these little little little they're they're just like containers from the dollar store have different items in the bottom of each taped the sides so they can't see it here so they can't see it so they have to shake it and listen and try and guess what it is and then have mat of all the different things that it could be so like this one they may go this one's rocks can tell so they would pull where's the back that one's missing everything is missing today so like this one the fake favorite listening to it they could say think this one sounds like does it sound like rice no does it sound like ribbon no think it sounds like buttons and then they can look and they can see that it's buttons and then they can take that one off and put it on the top and that choice would be eliminated and they can figure it out until all of the problem all of them are solved like here's the ribbon but listen can't really hear it so they'll have to use their ears to figure out what is inside just use duct tape you can use any container from the dollar store with some Velcro on the top and the bottom like to have visual out of what the choices are so that way they can start listening and using their observations to make make guess or hypothesis on what it could be so there there is sense of hearing and then have the poster smaller can hear with my ears and then have this little sorting board it says here all the different things we can hear we can hear our friends music fire truck dog and have this for each scent so each time do the scent take what's at the table and then you can also do this too like let's say you're done with sense of hearing or maybe you don't want to do it maybe you don't want to do it for like bunch of weeks so what you can do is is forgot another book or another bucket but when you're done with this or maybe you want to have two out all you can do is take this and put all of the sense of hearing in like bucket or tub you can put the book and then the board and the activity all in here and then like you could have two out on the table if you wanted like you could have hearing on this side and then on this side maybe you would want site sense of sight investigation so totally up to you how you do it and it's also going to depend on how much space you have in your classroom how long you're gonna do the study for how long the kids are interested in something or in one of the senses know hearing and smell are always the ones that they love the most so that's an idea for hearing I'm actually going to take this out for drive second because have another one for the sense of hearing want to show you so know we have lot of books in our classroom but lot of these books that for the sense of hearing love because sense of hearing is kind of little bit tricky but all of these books these are great all the little press button books so they would have to guess which animal it is or they can just listen to the different animals and then also have another one lot of these know lot of families have these and they're so in their homes so you can say hey if you want if you have any books with noises can you send these in and we've let them let us borrow them for the week or for our study and then you don't have to go out and buy everything but like this one this one's really great this one's at Target right now so now they have to use their ears to listen to see which animal it is and even though it says it but there's also ones like have dinosaur one have one that's Transportation you can get all different ones but these books that have the noises are great for the sense of hearing for your hearing portion of the investigation or sound sorry you can also put out tray of instruments love this book sounds all around and this one goes great with like if you do listening Walk The Listening walk book is great too if you want to go outside and do listening walk and just walk and you can either write down or the students can have clipboard and they can draw all the different things they hear now if they're three are they gonna actually draw or are they gonna scribble they're probably gonna scribble but remember those scribbles are super super meaningful because they have to scribble before they can draw simple shapes and once they draw simple shapes then they can draw more detailed drawings that they need when they're in kindergarten and first grade when they're doing their illustrations for their books so go outside and go on to San Juan give everybody clipboard and you can do it that way or you can also just put out some instruments in your classroom if you didn't don't want to set up those little tubs you can just put out different instruments and they can try and play them and just listen to how all of the sounds are different know some people too they for the sense of sound they make and see if can reach them hold on they make egg shakers and they put different things inside and then all of mine have beans but you can put different things inside so you can put beans in some rice and some pom-poms and some and then you can use them at music and movement times and then they will make different sounds and you can have the students help you make them that's another great idea for the sense of sound and we can hear with our ears and then it's also something you can use for the rest of the year which love that not like one and done type of activity so that's that's the sense of sound so let me show you some more ideas for let's do site next so for the sense of sight have would put out all of my all my cards and my books over there and then I'll just keep it on the tray for right now but again have it just on little card and then that way as they're looking through the bottles they know what they can find you can put dry erase marker let me put this up here you can also put dry erase marker out with this so they can mark off the things as they find them now this this is gonna really help them develop their visual discrimination because our eyes are muscle just like our fingers and our arms so they're gonna have to use their eyes to try and find all the objects now this one is going to be harder to find than the objects in here because they they stick out more there's more of contrast so make difference spy bottles with different things inside so that way some are easy and some are little bit trickier to find and again that works on our visual discrimination and we need strong eyes because all the letters look the same so that will help our writing and our identifying letters as well so for sense of sight you can have eye spy bottles which is really fun or if you don't want to make bottles you can just put like tub of beans like like kind of like little mini sensory tub and put all those things inside and then they can kind of hunt and find all of the different things if you don't want to do the bottles that's another option too so if fun activity for the sense of sight is for students to make their own spy bottles so like let's say you figure out whatever bottles that you have lot of like have whole bunch of these Tropicana bottles just in my storage closet could take off the wrapper and then maybe you have whole bunch of water bottles again use what you have ask families to donate empty bottles they don't all have to match it's totally fine grab some mini erasers these are just like set got from Amazon or does that grab like you can literally grab just things that you have around your classroom too or just go to the dollar store like grab thing of paper clips and then just whatever like tiny little Treasures they have at the dollar store that are dollar that you could give each kiddo use that or just buy some mini erasers and you can give each kid like you know 10 or they can pick out five or something and then you can use whatever again use whatever filler you have you can use just some beans they can fill it up with rice and you guys it doesn't have to be fancy they don't have to dye the beans if you want to you can they don't have to dye the rice just give them some little objects put it in there and and then they can fill it up and then they have an Spy bottle to take home or you can keep them in your classroom you could also make name spy bottles with the scent of sight and then they can practice their name as well as making nice spy bottle so kind of sneaking some literacy in with the the sense of sight it's another idea so for books my students when taught full day for like taught full day think like 12 years and then taught half day for three spy books were had some in my classroom library and they were read every single day during like book time so after snack they would get to go read book so have giant collection of my spy books you can get bored spy books that are simpler that are easier to find the pictures you can do like the reader spy books like you guys they love them like had to like tape all of them like you do at the library because they played with them so much so these easy reader spy books are great like you can tell like these are from Scholastic sometimes like Chick-fil-A had some sometimes so have some from there and then the ones they love to read the most though were these big ones and they never obviously they didn't read the words to find anything but they would just notice and point out all of the different little things that were in these books and again it's great for visual discrimination for them noticing it gets them talking again we want them talking to each other learning from each other developing that oral language and it's also great for vocabulary like look at all of these just mean it's just packed with vocabulary and if they're they're gonna pick the page they're interested in right and that's the thing that they're going to have more background knowledge about so they're going to talk about that and then our friend will have more background knowledge about that after they listen to them talk about all these things and point out and find all the little things inside the books so if you're doing the sense of sight you can just put out bucket of spy books you can do that for morning table time you can do it for like dismissal if you're if you have students like kind of leave different different times like did there was like 15 minute window families could pick up so you could put out your bucket of ice by book say at this table we are gonna have our books about sight and then at this table we're gonna have our books about sound and have different books set up at each table it doesn't have to be small group you can just use it as kind of an arrival dismissal thing but it's great for the sense of sight great great great so super super fun idea and kind of easy like they're just size five it doesn't always have to be like this big crazy amazing activity mean it can be but it doesn't always have to be everything like bazillion times over let's do scent of smell okay so for sense of smell have my little shark and forgot all these printables are in the five senses science unit and again have all of them on little Velcro and again all of this is in there and have things that are very very smelly like think made these four years ago and if can smell it because have like almost no sense of smell if can smell it they will be able to smell it so put out all of the little little plastic salt shakers and just covered the size of washi tape so they can't see and so when they shake it it activates whatever's inside like this one has coffee beans they can smell it you can still smell the coffee beans and they can figure guess which one it is is it Orange Peel no is it peppermint no is it coffee yes and then they can take it and they can put it on lot of kids put it on top of the whatever the object was also had yummy or yucky so they could decide if they thought if their opinion was if it was yummy or yucky like for me know don't come at me don't like coffee so would put coffee on the yucky side know most of you would probably put coffee on the yummy side but there's this one fell out but yeah and it's one is soap have cinnamon and it doesn't take lot like cinnamon sticks flowers you can also cheat with flower one put fake flower in and then spray perfume on it and then orange peel peppermint garlic so yeah so that would be the sense of smell and again you can also put out all of the different things and the posters and if you have any books on tons of snow you can put all of that all of that out at when you're doing sense of smell so another fun activity to do during sense of smell here's the book and all my little readers get lot of these through Scholastic this one's little Pebble love little Pebble books they're super super simple text the photos are simple they're diverse love little Pebble books these are great got this set through Scholastic one year so that sense of smell so have you seen like the smelly and stinky markers from kayola so they have ton of these so you can just do smelly and stinky drawings if you don't have the Crayola ones just use your like Mr Sketch tend to keep those to myself for me so got these and they also have ones that are like stinky and mean they actually stink you guys and then do you remember like scratch and stiff scratch and sniff stickers so had some so just cut them up so again that way there's not whole bunch of sheets so you can cut them up more or less these smells together just don't smell good and you can just put out some paper and your smelly stickers and your smelly markers and they can create smelly art so again just something like super super simple to get them talking about all the different smells now know lot of us love making Jello don't have any made right now but lot of us make Jello Play-Doh so you can make Jello Play-Doh for sense of smell you can also make Kool-Aid have some think couple of these are open but you can make Kool-Aid Play-Doh for sense of smell so that way they can smell all the different things you can also make pudding Play-Doh so you take you take regular the jello one's little bit different the recipe but for putting Play-Doh what you do is you make your regular batch of Play-Doh and then sprinkle in not lot maybe like two tablespoons of like chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding or strawberry or butterscotch whatever it is and then you have smelly pudding you can also do all the different spices too like if it's fall you can make pumpkin Play-Doh or apple cinnamon Play-Doh so just anything makes them smelly Play-Doh for you guys and then forgot an idea for something so Okay so so for sense of smell for art and I'll tell you my sense of my art idea for hearing in minute forgot that one so all you're gonna do is you're gonna take some paint and put it in cup and then take some extract so love using the maple extract because it smells like syrup and you can put that one in the red and then did orange for orange and then did banana for the yellow and you guys it actually like smells like that's the maple syrup one is really really strong may have gotten it on my fingers and so smell like syrup so I'm just wash it off or don't get all over your fingers really well like actually spilled the actual extra so just grab some extracts that you think will go together and then just did warm colors so that way if the colors mixed they wouldn't turn brown so that way if we can hang them up in the classroom but again just put some paint in cup add some extract and now you have smelly smelly paint and it's really fun art activity and my activity for sound forgot to tell you so take you can either do this during centers by putting an iPad that has music ready to go on it or you can do this for small group and turn on different music and they can paint the music so you can turn on fast music like with fast info and they can play Fast if it's slow Tempo Tempo Music they would paint slow if it's like choppy they may dots so they want to paint however the the music or the sounds are making them feel so that's really fun art activity to do with sound and again you don't have to have because we have all this amazing technology put an iPad in there and again if you're nervous about paint you can put like paint sticks in there or you can just put markers in there too it doesn't have to be paint and they can draw or paint to the music and they can just play the different songs on your iPad make like little like little Spotify playlist your kid one for your sound painting or sound drawing which is really really fun and it's very relaxing like if you see your kids getting kind of squirrely because you know maybe it's Monday and they didn't get much sleep over the weekend or you know just sometimes your class is more riled up than others it's really great activity to do really anytime during the year to just calm everybody down and relax everybody because the students will all of sudden really listen to the music and they'll paint or draw again it doesn't always have to be paint but yeah it's really really fun so try sound painting or drawing so fun so that's sound and smell is that one next is touch so again have my poster with all the different things have my little velcro guys and then instead of doing and did in this unit in this science unit put touch with my hands or touch with my skin so whichever one you want to put out there's both options for everything for this sense what did is like to put everything in socks so that way there's only one thing in each one and have them as black socks so they can't see what's inside they can also if like for me don't really like like whenever we had to do like sense of touch or remember when was in college we were practicing like sense of touch activity was little nervous sticking my hand into box because didn't know what it would feel like so love using socks because if that makes kid nervous like me they can still feel it on the outside of the sock now if they want to be you know daring and put their hand inside and they can feel it on the inside they can do that too but really like that for kids who just are not comfortable or makes them nervous or makes them feel uneasy for sticking their hand inside box or and touching all the things so they can still touch it and then they can go this one's pine cone and then velcro sticks to socks so then they would stick it on and sometimes you can hear it so like this one again they can feel it on the outside or they can stick their hand in and they can feel it and then they can also pull it out and see what it is this one's rock so that way they can check and see what it is and then they can hide it back in there for their friend so again it's just super simple with socks and grab some at the dollar store and then again have them for all just the senses so you can put that out on the table with the sense of touchbook you can also put all of these out and do it as sorting activity totally up to you I'm just gonna hit one I'll just put that out here there we go all right and then hold on gosh these books are heavy okay so remember all these books from when kids were really little remember these like touch and feel books these are great for the sense of touch so some feel furry some feel bumpy some feel rough some feel furry all those really great descriptive words grab all these books they're organ if you don't have these you can send in home and say hey can we borrow any touch and feel books any books with sounds or any spy books you guys have in your homes can we borrow them for this study and we'll give them back but yeah these are perfect too and don't know if you noticed this but all of my sense of touch stuff had in like green buckets could have it so that way you can kind of easily tell which activity goes with which just got this one at Target don't know if you can see it's rubber so it's kind of different touch and feel can you see it it's like diff it's rubber but it's bumpy this one has little circles this one has little ridges so this one has like little itty bitty bumps but these are really fun too guess these are kind of like they had these but also wanted to see what other new books they had so these were two and again the animals work great any kind of like touch and feel book that again that you think would be great for infants these are great for developing all those all that language so you can say this snail is smooth and how does this snail feel this snail feels bumpy and then again run your finger crop fingers across the xylophone and those have little bit of lines you can't see it but they have more lines so it's it goes from like less bumpy to more about me so they can feel all of how all the different bumps this one tap the drum and it's super smooth but again we're using all those great vocabulary words to feel and touch and describe all those different feelings which is also great some great math vocabulary right for describing all the different things so you have your sense of touch books as well that you can put out for students to explore again love putting out the sense of touch or sense of sight or sense of sound books during morning arrival time and dismissal okay let me grab this one okay so these just made today know you can buy these but wanted to see if could figure out way to make some sensory mats know lot of teachers when they read Pete the Cat and do the sensory walk and they go through all of the different things but it's kind of one and done activity and try and avoid one and done activities because if I'm gonna prep something want to be able to save some of it or most of it and do it again because then can grab it out of my closet and have it ready to go for the next year it'll save me time so this okay so this is just foam this one's not all the way Dragon it's little bit wet but this one so this one will be like Smooth this is just put some clear glue on here and glitter so this one will be kind of like Smooth and then again use what you have in your closet had whole bunch of red pipe cleaners put those on red did feathers had some like Leaf sequins as they fell off mean the hair the holes are pretty good will say did use bunch of hot glue and then know lot of people do grass but you can do this this like what is it like the packing grass for like packages I'm gonna put this one over here so don't get anything stuck in and then did popsicle sticks because they're flat and then this one's actually like loofah that cut it's clean loofah I'm at the Dollar Tree that use them in in art lot but just took loofah and cut it apart and glued it on and then this one only lost my last couple this one's beans this one might might not last like whole bunch of times but I'm Gonna Last them and then also have some beans in there it didn't foil and then also did cotton balls now because know if some kiddos do not like textures like sensory walk is going to be really hard for them they may not want to so put these just on foam and of course you know me had to like match the colors but did it this way so you don't have to walk like you could put them all across the table and kids could feel and they could touch and everybody go how does how does this purple one feel and you could have it on the table and they could feel twine you could talk about it describe it they can explore it see how it feels to them if it makes them feel good or if they don't like it especially if you have some friends that don't like the way things feel and this would be an upsetting activity that way they can kind of touch it with one finger or they can just observe and that way they don't have behavior because you're you're asking them to do something that they're not comfortable with because we don't want to you know make kiddos have behaviors right attention feel activity or sensory walk is not good reason for like if they don't do it it's okay like they can always just maybe touch with one finger or maybe they can touch two things and then maybe next time they'll touch more but you never want to force kiddo to touch or do an activity especially sensory ones if it makes them feel uncomfortable or if they don't like it also because the next time you ask them to do something and you make them do something or you make them feel uneasy they're not going to trust you and we want kids to trust you right like if if they say no don't want to type something and say okay let me know if you change your mind or maybe if you want to next time it's okay I'll tell you how it feels and let me know if you change your mind so make it no big deal right but again you can put all these on the table which is also not as crazy as having you know eight kids walk up and down all of like sensory path and it's also you'll have lot more vocabulary and more conversation so you could have all of these things out on the table and then say my gosh you know what we're gonna do next we are going to make this into path and then put them out and then the kiddos that want to can walk across them maybe kiddo that doesn't want to walk across these and bare feet or with socks maybe say you don't know you don't want to touch this with your feet do you want to have your shoes on and you can walk across with your shoes that way you can do the activity but you don't have to feel how it touches and maybe that's maybe that's like first step for that kiddo to touch or feel one of these things and then maybe next time they may they may try little bit more because they trust you and they know that it's safe and and you love them and you are there for them and you are you are there to be their buddy so make your own sensory walks so so fun and again instead of having sensory walk and you did it once and it's done because you do it with water and real grass put this in like tub and you can have it next year in the year after now I'm not saying some of these won't pop off they probably will but you can at least you can like pop hot glue back on afterwards okay so the sensory walk is really really fun now at your five senses study love doing sorry face in the video love popping popcorn and talk about all of the senses because you can when you pop the popcorn and if you don't like the ones in the bag they do have these like microwave bowls that you can put popcorn in and you can pop it that way too if you want to use regular popcorn not this stuff in bag but do what works for you if you have real popcorn popper that would be even more amazing to bring in your classroom we can talk about how it sounds you can talk about how it smells how it feels how it looks and how it tastes now my trick with anchor charts laminate the pieces pull them like let's say you did this you have these great conversations you had this up in your classroom for like month and you're ready to move on to something else take these laminated pieces off put them in your five senses like bucket or tub or however you keep everything organized and then you have your anchor tart pieces so you can do it again next year so that's why all of my you'll see all of my anchor chart pieces most of them anyways laminate it so do five senses talk with popcorn have two more activities okay forgot to do sense of taste so love doing sense of taste because it's great opportunity to talk about what we can taste and what we can't taste and do also when you're talking about touching or hearing or smelling we can talk about things that are safe to touch safe to smell things that are not safe to smell not safe to touch like cactus so it's kind of good like mini like safety talk too so you can be like you know what it's okay some things are okay and safe to touch and some things are not safe and okay to touch like cactus will hurt you you know it's not safe to eat rock but what are things that are safe so you can do taste test and have super super simple stuff pretzel cookie lemon and then do the bitter chocolate the bitter chocolate one cracks me up because kids don't usually expect it to be bitter now again if kiddo does not want to taste anything do not make them say you know what if you want to try these things awesome if you don't want to that's okay too say no thank you or maybe you just give everybody give everybody their own plate and give everybody their own little tasting plate and maybe they don't want to touch it or I'm sorry maybe they don't want to taste it like maybe they don't want to taste the lemon because maybe they've tried it before and they know it's sour or they saw their friend try it and they made funny base so maybe they just want to touch it the first time and that's okay kids are picky eaters kids have more taste buds than us and am probably one of the pickiest eaters in the world so get it don't want to don't want to taste everything either so and then you can you can do like class vote on is it salt and then talk about how things can be salty sweet sour and better and then you can vote on they can vote and sell you the how most people think those things taste and again it's laminated because what am gonna do when the scene is over I'm gonna take these pieces off and put it in my pocket or put my pocket put it in my tub so can use it for next time so now this one is it's little extra and if you know me I'm extra sometimes but again do the ones that you want to do that you hear me talk about tonight and the ones who are like no don't want to do that one then don't fill one or maybe keep it in your pocket and have to keep it for next year so this is giant anchor chart all these pieces are in the the book so what would do is is like let's say you had touched out at the table ask before you go change it out talk about all the things you can touch just list it they can cut magazine pictures out so at the end or after you don't do each sense then do that part of the anchor chart and then if they want to later they can add magazine pictures know there's not lot of magazine pictures anymore but yeah so you can kind of do it as kind of like culminating activity at the end of your unit and again hang it up put it in the hallway this is great to kind of say this is you know we did the vibe the five senses and you can like put little blurb up there out in the hallway or just hang this in the hallway that works too and again laminate the pieces so you can take it apart and you have it prepped for next year so I'll think think those are all of the five senses activities have for you guys and yeah so hope you loved all these five senses actually one more thing so just like we do counting we do counting little bit August if we kind of do it little bit every month right you don't want to do five senses and as like one and done unit also do five senses again during the holidays when it's gingerbread time because the gingerbread cinnamon so it's great to smell but there's so many holiday smells you can do so also have gingerbread five senses science unit so you can kind of come back and talk about five senses again because you want to retouch on some of these science topics especially of like the cyan scene science and skills because the first time is they learn about it they're gonna just hit their surface level and then the next time they learn about it they're going to learn it little bit deeper little bit more they're going to have more background knowledge they'll have more vocabulary so they'll just kind of like build and build and build and build and then like to do five senses around in the spring do have five census activity every year with peeps that's actually freebie on my blog so if you want that for Springtime around when all the bunnies come out you can do the peeps by senses activity but yeah but make sure you don't do this once and put it away in your closet and be done for the whole year also let let's say they really love this sense of touch activity what you can do is hold on let me dump this out like let's say these are the buckets that you have on your science shelf take all of this take this whole activity and maybe they love the sense of smell Maybe you know whichever one it is that they love or maybe there's two that they love take these along with the vocabulary words the word cards like you could take these put those in there put the touch like little chart in there take the touch book wherever that is can't don't see it right now but put that in there and then put this on your sign shelf that's out kind of like all year long and that way they can play it again and again because the more times they do an activity the deeper of level of understanding they'll get and the more background knowledge they'll have and the more vocabulary so let's say they they're like do they're like no don't put that away or we want to play it again or maybe there's four kids that want to play it again take that activity again you've already prepped and they love and they want to do it again put it on the science shelf and have it out for you know month or two months and when you see nobody's playing with it anymore then put it away but that way they can do it again because again you've already prepped it and the more they do an activity especially with Little Learners the more of deeper understanding they're going to have of whatever activity topic that is so save yourself time and put it out again so and then again you can have it for next year and the year after that and you're after that and you're after that so think that's it now so hope you guys loved all of these five senses activities and if you guys have any questions make sure you drop them in the comments and we will come back and answer them and if not will talk to you guys soon have an amazing day or night whenever you guys are watching and will see you soon bye