Our five senses are extremely beneficial to our everyday lives because they help us to identify the things around us and they help us to understand the world around us. Teaching kids about the five senses can be a lot of fun and hands-on! Here are some ways to help kids understand and to teach them how to use their five senses!
Create a Sensory Board
You can make your very own sensory board and attach different things to it to cater to each of the five senses! Here are some examples you can use for your sensory board but feel free to use anything you have around the house or what your kids would love the most.
Taste: Glue a small jar or cup to the board and place some sort of simple candy in it, like m&m’s, skittles, or jelly beans!
Touch: For touch get some sort of textured item and glue it to the board, or you could even get a couple different items with different textures so they can feel the difference. (cotton, sandpaper, or playdough)
Smell: You can choose anything you want to attach for smell, whether that be something sweet or something stinky! Up to you!
Sound: For sound you could attach something like a bell that is attached to a string so they can ring it to hear the ringing noise the bell makes.
Sight: Sight is pretty simple, you can attach anything! Or you could attach a picture search, which if you don’t know what that is..it’s a picture that has a whole lot of stuff going on in the picture and they have to search for certain objects within the picture.
Set up a Senses Tables Game
You can make a game out of the different senses to help them learn! Set up a table with different things for each sense and have them identify the items. For every table besides the sight one, blindfold them. It is said if you take away one of your senses, the others are heightened. Here are some examples you can use for your sensory board but feel free to use anything you have around the house or what your kids would love the most.
Taste: Set out different food items and have them taste each one and identify what they are eating. You could do various things, like a piece of candy, then a carrot, and things like that.
Touch: Get things with different textures and have them simply feel around and try to figure out what they are holding
Smell: Similar to taste, just set out a few different items and have them smell each one and try to figure out what each one is. You can do different categories with this one as well.
Sound: Get a few different simple instruments or things that make sound and let them listen and try to figure out what each one is!
Sight: For a sight activity, you could hide things all around the room and have them have to look around to find things! Do a scavenger hunt!
There you go! Here is a couple different ways to teach kids all about the five senses that we use everyday to experience the world! Want some more ideas? Check out these amazing ideas from other bloggers:
Teaching Kids About the Five Senses
- Free 5 Senses Worksheets for Kids
- Exploring Vegetables with the Senses
- Nature Walk Activity FREEBIE! {Writing recording sheet for your Nature Walk}
- Five Senses Pocket Chart Sentences
- The Five Senses Song | Silly School Songs (Video)
- My Five Senses Book for Kids
- Learning About the 5 Senses – Potato Head Game and Free Printable
- A “HANDY” Way to Learn About Texture Freebie!
- Sensory Bottle for Little Ones
- 5 Senses Activity with Scratch & Sniff Names
Sensory boards are so much fun and I find that older siblings really love getting in on the creativity of creating one. These are all fabulous ideas!
These are really great ideas. The senses are especially fun to teach the kids because they’re perfect for hands-on learning approaches.
Those are some great ways to help kids learn about the senses. I especially liked the board that kids can experience and learn with live examples.
These are some really fun ways to set that up. My nephew and niece are at the perfect age for this so I think I’m going to share this with my sister-in-law so that she can do it with her children.
I am all about the worksheets these days with my 5 year old. These are some fun activities.
I think these are some really fun ideas. I wish I would have tried some of these when my girls were little. I’ll have to show my nieces and nephews.
I also all these great ideas for teaching kids about the senses. The worksheets are a great resources as well. Thanks!
These are such great ideas. The senses are especially fun to teach the kids, it’s all about touch, see, feel, smell, love it!
I love the idea of a sensory board. I might need to make one of those.
These are really fun ideas! Kids love it when they are having fun while learning!
I love the idea of having sound on a sensory board. I often think of textiles, but this is a great addition.
These are super cute ideas and I have a toddler right at the perfect age! Love the tip of creating a sensory board!
Love the sensory board idea! My kids used to do sensory buckets or tables in preschool and it was always a big hit!