Exploring the World Through the Sense of Sight

First they may see something new, using their sense of sight. Then they will want to reach out and touch it – their sense of touch. They will shake it, to discover if it makes a sound – their sense of hearing. Then they bring it close to their face, and will smell and taste it, using two more senses. This is the way infants, toddlers, and preschool children learn. Once children learn how to read, then they may learn by reading about something, but it is still best whenever practical, to involve two or more senses in the learning process. You can help your young child by teaching him about his five senses, and giving him lots of experiences to use those senses.

Children Love to Play Looking Games

You can help them to learn the vocabulary to describe what they are seeing. Whenever you have a moment to talk with him, ask him to describe how something looks. You can play word games with him, like “I spy” and “I’m thinking of something”. Play the card game Memory – looking for matched pairs of things. Teach him to recognize colors – but go beyond the basic eight crayola colors! Teach him to notice different shades of red, like crimson, rose, burgundy and salmon. Help him to see the differences between two similar objects. This is an important skill, as the letters d, p, q, and b are all very similar indeed!

Help Your Child Develop His Sense of Hearing

Can You Hear Me Now?

There are some studies which may indicate that listening to classical music can actually raise your child’s I.Q. This is known as the Mozart Effect, if you’d like to read more about it. I’m not sure if the results of the study are even important. You certainly can’t harm your child by playing classical music for him, so go ahead and give it a try!

You can play various listening games to help your child develop his sense of hearing. Classic games like “Simon Says” and “Mother May I” require attentive listening. There are new lotto games available that has the child listening to various common sounds – like a sheep baaing, a cow mooing, or a man snoring – and then cover that picture on his playing board.

Every Meal is a Discovery of Taste

Yummy!

Don’t forget to teach your child when it’s NOT appropriate to taste something! If you garden, you need to teach him that some parts of some plants are not good to eat. Don’t let him eat mushrooms he’s picked in the yard, or chow down on crickets (yuck!) whether they’ve been sprayed with insecticide or not! (Okay, my youngest ate a lot of crickets in her toddler years).

The Sense of Smell is Often the Poorest Developed Sense

Most children’s toys have no real smell. Sometimes picture books or stickers may have a “scratch and sniff” feature, but it quickly wears out. Some things are not safe to smell, like ammonia or bleach. But you can still help your child develop this sense. Again, at every meal, ask him to smell the food and describe what it smells like. When you’re baking a savory roast, help him to identify that scent. When you wash his hair with lavender shampoo, help him to identify that scent. Let him smell your perfume, or an onion when you are slicing it. You can even make a smelling game. Collect a dozen small uniform containers, like empty plastic film cans. Then put six pairs of different scents into the containers. Cover the top with gauze, so the child cannot see what’s inside, but can smell it. Have him sniff each can, and match them up accordingly. You could put a pair of cotton balls sprayed with perfume in two, a pair of onion slices in two more, and so forth. This game will eventually lose it’s potency, but the ingredients are cheap enough that you can refresh it periodically.

Children Love to Touch Things

Bunny Fur is Soft

You might put a tray of different objects out for your child to touch. One day you might do “prickly” and put out a whole pineapple, a brush curler, a pine cone, pine needles, hair brushes, etc. Let your child touch them, play with them, and describe them to you. Help him to learn new words to describe them. Then a few days later, repeat this activity with “soft” things, like cotton balls, fur scraps, velvet, a feather.

Set Aside a Special Place for a Sensory Table

In a Day Care Center, this might be referred to as a Sand/Water Play table, but you can put so much more than sand or water in it. In fact, there are so many activities to do with this, that I will put it in another post.

Teaching your preschooler doesn’t have to be hard, or expensive. It means just being there, and being alert for the teachable moments in his life.

Related Reading:
Sensory Play Activities
Twelve Fun Sensory Play Activities for Preschool
The Importance of Sensory Play in the Preschool

Lesson Plans on the Senses:
Sight
Sound
Touch
Taste

Photo Credits:
Top:photo by Aaron Escobar
Upper middle:photo by Tony Crider
Lower middle:photo by Pink Sherbert
Bottom: photo by K.H.Rawlings

Young Children Explore Their World Through Taste

We have taste buds on our tongues that tell us how things taste Each food has a particular taste Some foods taste sweet, or salty, or sour, or bitter. Some foods combine these tastes. We may add spices and seasonings to the food we prepare to alter the way it tastes. We like the way some foods taste. We don’t like the way some other foods taste. Sometimes we have to get used to the way a food tastes before we learn to like it.

This can be a fun week for you and your child, as you both discover some new tasty treats. Shake a bit of salt on a clean hand and lick. Shake a bit of sugar and lick. How do they taste? Teach the words “salty” and “sweet”. Are pretzels more like salt or sugar? They are said to be salty. What about cookies? They are sweet. Make lemon-aide together, and teach the word sour. Melt some unsweetened baking chocolate and teach the word bitter. From now on, when you serve a meal, ask your child if something tastes sweet or salty, bitter or sour. Make mealtimes pleasant conversations, and you may find your food battles melt away entirely.

For a really unique art experience, buy some Stick-a-Licks. This is a package of pre-cut geometric shapes, already gummed. The child just licks, and sticks – simple, fun, and relatively mess-free. A great project to save for rainy days, too. A package of 200 shapes is under $2.00, but you’ll pay $5.00 in shipping unless you order enough to total $50.00. You could call your local teacher-supply store, and see if they have some in stock or would be willing to order them for you. They do carry a warning label “not for children under 3″ but no child under five should be doing art projects unattended anyway. Use at your own discretion.

On Friday, you could schedule your young child to visit his or her dentist. If this is not possible, then you can can check out the dental health program offered by the American Dental Association. There are lesson plans, worksheets, and activities for you and your child.

Most of all, don’t forget to have fun! Take come pictures of your child doing this week’s activities and send them to me. I’d love to add them to the end of this post.

Recommended Picture Books for This Week:
You Can’t Taste a Pickle With Your Ear by Harriet Ziefert
Animal Senses: How Animals See, Hear, Taste… by Pamela Hickman
Tasting by Sharon Gordon
I Wonder Why Lemons Taste Sour by Deborah Chancellor
A Taste of Honey by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
How many Teeth? By Paul Showers
Yum? Mmm! Que Rico! Americas’ Sproutings by Pat Mora
I Can Eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel

If you’re new to the lesson plans, you’ll want to read:
Working with the Lesson Plans: Scheduling
The Family Meal
Calendar Activities
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity

Taste Lesson Plans