The five senses are all that children have to stay engaged in the world around them. It is also one of the most powerful tools that can help foster or improve young children’s oral language skills, written language skills, and sensory-motor experiences. 

Working on all of the senses at once will increase the child’s cognitive development, vocabulary, and verbal skills and increase their knowledge of these senses. Additionally, it will help them understand how those senses translate into things that they would normally see, taste, touch, smell, and hear.

To stimulate these five important parts of a child’s world, parents must use a variety of activities with a variety of objects or materials so that their child can have a grasp on each sense being used.

The following are some ideas that will help you provide your child with the opportunity to work and explore the five senses. 

14 Activities Based Around The 5 Senses For Preschool Children

Sense of Hearing

1. Play a Sound-Matching Game

This activity from Play to Learn Preschool is excellent in helping children improve their sense of hearing. To perform this activity, first, you need to gather the important supplies. You may need to have a dozen plastic eggs and several small items like Paper Clips, Unifix Cube, Dry Beans, and Buttons. Fill plastic eggs with a variety of small items available. Then, ask children to shake them up and find if they identify what’s inside based on the sound produced from the eggs. 

2. How Sound Helps You Make Decision

It is a great activity to help children understand that while the five senses gather information, the brain does all the work and helps us interpret and make firm decisions. You can use this activity with a sense of hearing and any other senses. You can find more details at Completely Kindergarten.

3. Head Outdoors for a Listening Platform

Before performing the activity, introduce the fun of heading outdoor by reading “The Listening Book” by Paul Showers. Afterward, get your kids ready for an outdoor fun activity. Provide them with a checklist to mark what sound they heard from outside. You can find further details about this activity at Teach Preschool.

Sense of Smell

4. Scent Hunt Game

It teaches kids about the sense of smell in an exciting way. In this game, kids will move around the room, sniffing pictures posted around the house and determine whether it has scent or not. To perform this activity, you may need scented essential oil or body spray and printable pictures, which you can download at PreKinders. 

5. Smelling Sensory Bottles Activity

Collect a couple of spice containers and put a cotton ball in each container with an essential extract. Ask children to sniff the containers without looking and see if they can identify the smells. Smelling Sensory Bottle Activity is indeed a fun activity to perform.

Sense of Taste

6. Apple Taste Test

Engage children in this wonderful activity. It is easy for kids to recognize the taste of an apple. To perform this activity, first, you need to prepare six apples in different colors. Then cut them into small slices and prepare pieces of each apple. Next, ask children to taste each apple and name the color of the slice they are tasting. They will be amazed to know that they can also identify different kinds of apples. To find further details, you can visit Play to Learn Preschool.

7. What Flavor Is It

This unique activity by Stay at Home Educator is a huge hit for kids. Jelly Belly jellybeans are the preferred item for this activity as they have a distinctive and intense flavor. Share the jellybeans with kids and encourage them to distinguish the different flavors from one another.

Sense of Touch

8. Mystery Touch Boxes

Gather about six empty cube-shaped tissue boxes and turn them into mystery touch boxes. Drop a variety of items into the box. Then let kids reach into the box, touch the items, and see if they can identify the texture that matches their feelings.

9. Describing Different Items with Sense of Touch

Ask your kids to feel different things and list the words they used to describe the items. You will be surprised to hear some of the best descriptive words. To know more about the activity, visit Some of this and Some of That.

Sense of Sight

10. Explore Sense of Sight with Magnifying Glass

Children will love to explore with a magnifying glass to see what they can discover. But, you can also take it up a notch by providing them with some other very small objects. To find out how you may visit Stay at Home Educator.

11. Wear a Pair of Lookers and Discover the World Around

The Looking Book by P.K. Hallinan is a great way to let children explore the sense of sight. The book shared the story of two boys who love spending much time in front of a screen. Their mother gives them each a pair of lookers and lets them discover the world around them. Give your kids each pair of “lookers,” like the boys from the story, allow them to go outside and explore many things. Find out more of this activity at Mrs. Jones’ Creation Station.

All Senses

12. 5 Senses Pop Rocks Activity

It is super easy and quick to set up activities from Little Bins for Little Hands. It will bring out your child’s adventurous side. Tear open a few bags of Pop Rocks candy and ask your kids to use their five senses to experience them to the fullest.

13. Explore Popcorn with Your Senses

This popcorn activity by Play to Learn Preschool will provide your preschoolers festive and fun learning on the five senses. First, use an old-fashioned air popper to make fresh popcorn. Then, allow your child to watch the process and utilize their other senses. Let them hear the popping sound and smell the aroma of the popcorn. Next, children can use their sense of touch to scoop the popcorn into a tray or bowl and finally taste it.

14. Putting together a Senses Station for Kids

We Have Kids will help you to come up with an excellent Senses Station for Kids. It is a great way to expose your kids to the five senses while providing them with some hands-on activities too. A sense station can be very useful at home or in the classroom.

Each one of us possesses the five senses. A child is only as good as the information he receives from their five senses. Through this activity, we can help our kids better understand what the world looks like, sounds like, tastes like, and feels like through their eyes and ears and hands and feet. With these simple yet effective activities, we hope your kids will be more aware of how they use the five senses.