Learn the 5 Senses

Learning “All About Us” is a popular unit for kindergarten and preschool, as part of our All About Us unit, we learned all about our 5 senses. This is always a fun set of activities to do with your kids, and the kids loved our 5 senses kindergarten activities we did. And of course, our homeschool preschool kid was tagging along.

And just to be clear, this is Future Ticia 2020, who’s added that introduction. Way back years ago, I started with this cold open:

We didn’t get as much done as I would have liked this week, but for good reason. We had cousins come to visit us.

I had big and glorious plans of doing one science experiment a day to go with the 5 senses. Then reality crashed in and we got one of them done, and the other one was more happenstance.

(Future Ticia 2020 says there are affiliate links in here)

5 senses kindergarten activities: Touch Experiment

Materials Needed: small bag or box (not see-through), several small toys

I used the small drawstring bag that I use to hold our restaurant toys, for toys I used the Jamestown toob toys (sorry, my old photos are ever so slightly out of focus)

1. Tell your kiddo to find a specific object in the bag. For the first go-around try to choose an easy object. Then make a guess how many tries it will take.

2. Have them close their eyes and try to pull the object out. Keep trying until you find it. Notice how well he “closed” his eyes. If he was peeking, he did a really bad job because it took him 4 tries.

3. Congratulate them when they find their object, and then provide a new challenge.

They always pulled the snake out first. I don’t know why, maybe because it was so thin and wiggly?

Sound Experiment as part of our 5 senses kindergarten activities

I have some planned for at home, but here’s what I found at the Kid Museum this time.

The different positions of the ball hit different “keys” on a music box, you can make your very own music box song. So, we had fun predicting what sounds different places would make.

But, let’s talk about what we actually did for our Sound experiment for our 5 senses kindergarten activities. Future Ticia 2020 says I’m copying this from the other post I put this in, and combining those two posts into one.

So, this past week we were studying “All About Us.” I was all set to do a bunch of experiments about the five senses when I discovered my kids had absolutely zero interest in this.

NONE. ZERO. ZILCH.

What did they want to learn about? Bones. More bones, what do bones do, why do we have bones, where are our bones, who else has bones….. And then more about this.

Luckily, some of the books I’d checked out from the library covered some of the stuff they were wanting to talk about. So, we read a few books and then talked about our bones and how we’re put together. Now comes the two fun parts.

The first experiment, this is what made me decide no more senses.

1. Blindfold your child. This is what they really hated, I didn’t think about how hard it would be for them to be blindfolded.

2. Have another child make a noise.

3. The blindfolded child then points to where the noise is coming from. Further variations are to have them cover one ear, and try to decide if it’s easier to find where the noise is coming from with one ear or two (if they’ve done it right, it’s easier with two, but kids aren’t that good at covering their ears)*

*except when they don’t want to hear something, then they’re very very good.

This next one is a game I found.

Where we detour from 5 senses kindergarten activities to more general All About Us

The Skeletons in the Closet game is sadly out of print, so see if you can find it. This is set up for four players. There are several different levels, my kids just did the below easiest level of spinning the spinner and getting the pieces they needed to finish putting the skeleton together. (Sigh, my copy was much more expensive at the silly teacher supply store)

Truthfully, my kids are not ready for this game. They don’t have the dexterity to put the skeleton together on their own, and they don’t really have any clue how you’re supposed to play it. That being said, they LOVED it. After they finished putting the skeletons together and learning that you have to play carefully with them. They had a lot of fun playing with the different pieces and moving their skeletons.

The actual experiment…….

Yeah, you’re probably going to be grossed out by this.

Those of you with a weak stomach stop reading now…..

Have I piqued your curiosity yet? I know as soon as I’m told to stop reading I keep reading.

We studied a whole chicken. I went to the store and got a whole chicken to cook for dinner, and thought this would make a great science experiment. Not a whole lot of pictures because I didn’t want to get the chicken gunk all over my camera.

Oh, and for those who are worried about any germs or contamination, after each step we used hand sanitizer.

First, we touched the skin and talked about how our bodies are covered in skin, and how our skin protects us.

Then we removed the skin and touched the muscles, and talked about how we use our muscles to move. (When I post what we read this week, I’ll have some great books for this age range on this subject).

Finally, we felt the bones on the inside and felt some of the bones on ourselves. If you’re ridiculously skinny like my kids are, you can feel your rib bones.

And anyone who thinks I’m starving my kids didn’t see how much Batman ate tonight….. He ate 3 helpings of steak, salad, and noodles. By the end, he had eaten more than me.

I’m scared of my grocery bill when these kids become teenagers. I’m taking donations now….

Seriously though, Future Ticia 2020 here, my grocery bill now with 3 teenagers is rather insane. They eat SO much!

Sense of Touch Taste Activity for a 5 senses kindergarten activities

For some reason, I keep typing touch rather than taste.

As I said, my kids had zero interest in continuing forward with this, so I’m just going to say my ideas:

Try different foods while blindfolded and see if they guessed correctly.

But, other people had some ideas:

Learning about taste buds

Sense of Sight Activity

I’d probably do a memory game and have them try to remember what they’d seen.

But, others had kids more interested in this, so here are their suggestions.

5 Senses Lesson– this actually has something for all the senses, but I’m putting it all the way down here.

More early learning for kids

• Neil Armstrong activity
• Georgia peanuts science lesson
• Great Wall of China lesson for kindergarten
• Aesop’s Fables kindergarten lesson
• Liberty Bell kindergarten craft