Article at-a-glance:

Learning Activies for Kids

by Jackie Silberg

How do children learn about the world around them? They touch, taste, see, smell, and hear it, of course!

In this article you will find many games to play with your children to explore the five senses. By playing these games, your children will learn to identify, compare, and classify items as they investigate the world around them.

SIGHT

Which part of your body lets you read a book, enjoy a rainbow, and see a snowball coming your direction? What part of your body lets you cry when you're sad and makes tears to protect itself? Which part of your body has muscles that let you see things close and far away?

The sense of sight is very important. It is what you use to see light from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you go to sleep at night. The eyes you have will be yours forever.

Play these games with your children:

1.) Look, Look

Look up, look down, look all around - Look here, look there, look everywhere!

(Move your eyes in the direction of the words.)

2.) A Different Colored World

Take a paper plate and cut an opening in the middle of it. The opening should be large enough for the eye to look through. Tape a piece of colored cellophane over the opening.

Talk with your child about how the room looks through the colored cellophane. Let the children look through the opening in their plate. Talk about different objects in the room and how they look different. Ask your child what you look like through the colored cellophane.

3.) Animal Eyes

Some animals have eyes in the front of their heads so that they can focus clearly as they look for food. These animals are called predators. Some of these are monkeys, leopards, and lions.

An animal that has eyes that face sideways is called a non-predator. That means that other predator animals will try to attack it for food. Non-predators can see almost all the way around their bodies, giving it lots of opportunity to spot a predator and run to safety. Some non-predators are rabbits and raccoons.

Look through magazines and identify animal eyes.

SMELL

We smell with our noses. When we breathe in the air around something, the smell goes in our noses. Almost everything has its very own smell. You use your nose and your sense of smell to smell many different things. Some things smell good, like flowers or perfume. We like to use our noses to smell good things. Some things smell bad, like a skunk or a rotten egg.

Play these games with your children:

1.) "I Like to Smell" Pictures

Let the children cut out pictures of things they like to smell. Paste the pictures onto a piece of construction paper.

Talk about the pictures and use words to describe the smells. Sweet, strong, bad, etc are words to start with.

2.) Does Smell Change the Taste?

Put three pieces of pineapple in a paper plate. Put a toothpick in each piece. Hold a piece of lemon under your nose. Make sure that it is very close to your nose.

While smelling the lemon, eat a piece of pineapple. Now hold the lemon a little farther away from your nose and eat another piece of pineapple. Does the pineapple taste the same or different?

Put the lemon slice on the plate. Eat the last piece of pineapple. What does it taste like?

3.) No Smell, No Taste

Ask your child if she thinks she can taste something without smelling it. Put two pieces of candy in a paper plate -- one cinnamon flavored, one fruit flavored. Be sure to use a different color for each piece.

Without smelling the candies, ask your child to put one piece of candy in her mouth and see if she can identify the taste. Now do the same with the second piece and ask if she can tell the difference without smelling.

You can play this game with fresh fruit pieces if you don't want to use candy. You use a nose to smell with. If you were a different kind of animal, you might use your tongue, or your antennae, or your feet to smell with!

But no matter what kind of animal you are, your sense of smell needs three things: something that smells, something to smell with, and something (like a brain) to figure out what to do about the smells.

4.) An Elephant Poem with Actions

The elephant goes like this and that, (Walk like an elephant on all fours.)

He's very big and very fat, (Hold your arms up high and out to the side.)

He has no fingers and no toes, (Point to your fingers and toes.)

But, my, oh, my, what a nose! (Point to your nose.)

5.) Little Skunk's Hole (Sing to the Tune of "Dixie")

Oh, I stuck my head in the little skunk's hole,

And the little skunk said, "Well, bless my soul.

Take it out. Take it out.

Take it out. Remove it!"

Oh, I didn't take it out and the little skunk said,

"If you don't take it out,

You will wish you had.

Take it out! Take it out!"

Pheeew, I removed it.

Ask your child what happened.

HEARING

Listen! What do you hear? Maybe the sound you hear is as quiet as raindrops falling lightly. Or maybe it is loud, like a siren going by. Sounds are everywhere, and you have two parts on your body that let you hear them all: your ears!

Your ears are in charge of collecting sounds, processing them, and sending sound signals to your brain. And one more thing….your ears help you keep your balance.

Play these games with your children:

1.) Voice Vibrations

Put your hand over your throat. Make different sounds to feel the vibration of your larynx. You can talk, yell, hum, and whisper.

2.) Vibration Trick

Hold your palm in front of your face. Blow on your palm.

As you are blowing, take the index finger of your other hand and move it up and down through the air stream. Listen to how the sound of the air changes.

3.) Voice Sounds

Cats have over 100 vocal sounds; dogs only have 10.

What sounds can you make with your voice? Whisper, laugh, cry, yell, and gargle.

What others can you think of? Count the different sounds that your voice can make.

TASTE

The sense of taste is crucial to our health because it prepares our bodies for digesting food. Tasting and smelling food trigger our salivary glands and digestive "juices". Without them, our stomachs wouldn't be ready for food, and we'd have trouble digesting food and making use of the nutrients we get from food.

Another reason why taste is crucial to our health is that it provides information about our food. With one bite, we can often detect "off" flavors that may signal that the food has spoiled. In effect, we learn to rely on our senses of taste to warn about foods that may be dangerous.

Play these games with your children:

1.) Sweet or Sour

Take two paper cups and partially fill one with lemon juice and the other with a sweetened liquid.

Give your child a Q-tip and have them dip it into the lemon juice and put it on her tongue. Do the same with the sweetened liquid, using a clean Q-tip.

Talk about the differences between sweet and sour tastes.

2.) Another Sweet and Sour Game

Play the same game as above except try putting the Q-tip on different parts of the tongue and talk about the differences in the taste. Is the taste stronger? Is the taste the same?

3.) Tongue Bumps

Stick out your tongue and look at the bumps. The bumps on the tongue are called papillae, and inside each one are hundreds of taste buds. The very tip is best at sweet things, the sides are sour. Saltiness is detected all over, and the buds right at the back detect bitter things.

Touch the different parts of your tongue and name tastes that go with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

4. Taste Pictures

Look through magazines and find pictures of foods that have a sweet taste. Cut out the pictures and paste them on a piece of construction paper. Write at the top of the picture "sweet."

Now look for sour tastes and do the same. Follow that with pictures of foods that have salty taste.

5.) Food Song Polka

This wonderful song names foods from all over the world that have many different tastes.

Food Song Polka by Jackie Silberg in on the CD Touched By a Song

Capellini, fettucini, escargot and bok choy.
Jambalaya and papaya, teriyaki, bok choy
Herring, kippers, guacamole,
Kreplach, crumpets, ravioli,
Gyros, gumbo, sushi, curry, poi, bok choy.
Tacos, baklava, egg rolls,
French fries, rumaki, Sally Lunn.
Bratwurst, lasagna, wonton,
Chow mein, ceviche, crab rangoon.
Weiner schnitzel, salted pretzels, sauerkraut and bok choy.
Mo goo gai pan, enchilada, sauerbraten, bok choy.
Herring, kippers, guacamole,
Kreplach, crumpets, ravioli,
Gyros, gumbo, sushi, curry, poi, bok choy.

TOUCH

While your other four senses (sight, hearing, smell, and taste) are located in specific parts of the body, your sense of touch originates in the bottom layer of your skin called the dermis

Every bit of skin all over your body, including your nails, is used for touching. The nerve endings in the skin send signals to the brain. The brain analyzes the signals and you feel the effects of touch.

Scientists are researching and investigating the sense of touch with very interesting results. They have invented artificial hands to work robotically in places where human hands cannot work; places such as deep spaces or tiny spaces, places where there are dangerous conditions or materials, places where the robot hand can be remotely controlled.

Play these games with your children:

1.) No Hands

While sitting down, put your hands on your head or your lap. See how long you can go without using your hands. (If the children are old enough to understand time, you can watch the seconds go by on the clock.)

2.) Thumb Games

Talk about how important the thumb is for grasping objects.

Experiment with picking up objects from a table -- with and without using your thumb. Some objects you can use are: a block, a crayon, and a paper clip.

3.) Hands Are Important

The sense of touch is experienced through our hands. List three things that we do with our hands and ask children how each activity feels. Here are some suggestions: Scratch your head, clap your hands, pick up food.

All of these games will help children identify and use their senses - essential tools for identifying the world.