5 senses activities

Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow?
Ask kids: Why do we even have ears? Ears are the bodies tools for collecting sounds. Take a couple of minutes in your busy day to close your eyes with your child and just listen. Can you guess what sounds you are hearing? Instead of reading a story, just tell one or listen to some music.

Here is a quick and amazing science experiment that piggy-backs with setting the table or doing dishes. Using a string about as long as your arm, tie the middle around a metal spoon, leaving two long ends. Now, wrap a couple twists of the string around the index finger of each hand. Put your fingers in your ears and let the spoon dangle down. Lean over and let the spoon tap the edge of a table or counter. What did it sound like? (Works best if the string is right at the end of the fingers and it should sound like a big clanging bell.) Wasn’t that astonishing? What sounds do you like to hear? What don’t you like to hear?

Continuing with November-getting to know you, this week’s focus will be on the 5 senses. Some of these activities can be done while you are doing something else, like going on the bus, getting a meal ready, buying groceries or doing laundry.

We use our eyes to see. This is the sense of sight. Play I Spy, looking for shapes, or colors, or what things are made of. Adults or kids can hide something in a room and kids can search for it. (As long as this isn’t used too often, adults can hide a treat that can only be found when a pile of something is all put away.) Read a book–especially a Magic Eye one. Pass out some crayons for using eyes to draw and color a picture. Did you know that eyes can not distinguish color in the dark? Take several crayons into a dark room and notice how hard it is to tell the colors. If you have a magnifying glass, take a look at the picture and see how it changes. Try to put on socks with eyes closed. Pretty hard to get the heel part in the right place or tell if the socks are right side out. Talk about how we need to take good care of our eyes. Take turns naming some things that each of you likes to see and doesn’t like to see. I like to see the sun; I don’t like to see the leaves blowing back all over the yard. How about you? What things do you like to see?