Five Senses Activities for Kids

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Teaching kids about the five senses can be so much fun. There are a lot of great five senses activities for kids. Today I want to share some we have done as well as a new printable set of books I have created to teach kids about each of the five senses. Hopefully you will find something to add to your lesson plans!

What Are the Five Senses?

Humans have five senses. They are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.  A sense is a physical experience that occurs with different organs of your body and then information is sent to your brain to be processed. Our senses are pretty incredible and I love helping kids learn about them.

 

Five Senses Activities for Kids

Following are some activities for each of the five senses that you can use in your lessons.  Also, I have a little easy-reader book for each individual sense to help kids further understand them.

Activities for the Sense of Sight

Our sense of sight works when light enters into our eyes through the cornea. This is the clear part that covers the pupil and the iris. The lens of our eyes focus the light and transfer these signals to the retina at the back of the eye, then to the optic nerve and on to the brain. The brains translates the visual images to help us understand what we are seeing.

Check out the following activities to stimulate the sense of sight:

Color mixing with light

Try some Optical Illusion Drawings (There are some cool ones in my Math Art Book)

Go on a color scavenger hunt!

Print these fun I-Spy pages.

Try some of these Rainbow Experiments for Kids

 

Activities for the Sense of Hearing

How does our hearing work? Our ears hear sound waves when they beat agains the tympanic membrane also called the ear drum. This creates vibrations that then transfer to three tiny bones in the cavity of the middle ear. The bones then carry the vibrations to the inner ear canal.

Try some of the following activities to learn more about the sense of hearing.

Try this fun Magic Ear Trick!

Make a bird seed and pine cone sensory bottle.

Make a homemade rain stick.

Make a Slide Whistle

Sound Experiment: Buzzing Bug Noisemaker Toys

Make a sound guessing game for your kids! (check out ouse of the YouTube videos on this.)

 

Activities for the Sense of Smell

How does the sense of small work?  Objects all around us release molecules that enter our nasal cavity. These molecules stimulate receptors on the olfactory sensory neurons in the back of the nose, or the olfactory bulbs. Those neurons then send messages to your brain helping it identify what the smell is.

Guess the Spice Activity

Have a blindfolded smell test of common smells. Liquids can be put onto cotton balls to make this activity easier.

Try making some homemade bath bombs~ Coconut-Lemon Bath Bombs

 

Activities for the Sense of Taste

How does our sense of taste work?  Our tongues is covered with tiny bumps called taste receptors. These taste buds are what allow us to taste different things. The nerves in these taste buds send signals to our brain.

Here are some ways to teach about the sense of taste:

Learn about the different taste buds and try different items that relate to each of the different types of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami or savory.

How to Make Edible Slime

Have a blind folded taste test.

Taste different seeds with The Seeds We Eat- Nature Science activity

Try this Kitchen Chemistry: Cake Experiment

Apple taste-test: Try different kinds of apples and choose your favorite.

Try foods and flavors from around the world. What are your favorite new flavors?

 

Activities for the Sense of Touch

How does our sense of touch work?  It’s amazing that our fingertips can feel so much, isn’t it? We have a huge network of nerve endings and touch receptors in our skin. These sensory nerves relay messages to our central nervous system.

Try some sense activities related to touch:

Sensory play activities are great for this. Try making some Oobleck or Cloud dough.

Make some homemade slime or floam.

Try this tapioca pearl sensory play.

 

Five Senses Books for Kids

Now more about these fun Easy Reader books I put together.  Each of these books has 8 pages. Each book explains the sense in easy to  understand terms for young readers. There are some pictures of the anatomy of how the sense works if you want to dive a little deeper, too!

I have been working on a series of these easy reader books for a few weeks now and have loved making them. See the others I have made so far:  Astronaut Easy Reader Book, What is a Paleontologist? Easy Reader for Kids, Garden Themed Kindergarten Reading Book

Want to download this 5 senses Easy reader set?

You can find this printable set here: