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Touch & Smell Activities

Most people take their five senses for granted. In fact, most young children probably can identify their favorite stuffed animal by touching it or can identify their mother's perfume. But most young children haven't given a lot of thought to their senses. Teach kids about their senses of touch and smell through interactive activities. Consult parents before performing the activities to find out about children's allergies.
  1. Blindfold Game

    • Help children learn how important their senses of smell and touch are by blindfolding them and asking them to identify items using only those two senses. Blindfold children and fill a paper bag with items that have a distinct shape or texture, and have children try to identify the items by touch. Suggested items include a fuzzy teddy bear, a smooth rock and a squishy ball. Repeat the activity with the sense of smell. Blindfold the students and ask them to smell and identify such items as a flower, a sliced orange and an onion.

    Touch-and-Smell Books

    • Encourage children to create touch-and-smell books to explore their senses. Provide paper and other materials for children to create their books. Have them glue a different item to each page of their books. Each item should be something to feel or smell. Older children can write a story that incorporates the items. For instance, young children can simply paste a cotton ball onto paper to represent something soft to touch. Older kids can draw a picture of a lamb and paste the cotton ball to the picture. Add pages to represent the sense of smell. Glue items such as a rose petal and a scratch-and-sniff sticker onto the pages.

    Scavenger Hunt

    • Send children on a "Touch and Smell" scavenger hunt. Make a list of items related to their senses of touch and smell that the children must find on a scavenger hunt. You can ask the kids to find something that smells pretty and something that feels soft or hard. Have students write down their findings, or have younger children draw a picture of the items they have found.

    Other Touch and Smell Activities

    • Help students learn more about their senses of touch and smell through a visual reminder such as a poster. Divide a poster board into two columns. Draw the image of a hand on one side to represent the sense of touch and a nose to represent the sense of smell. Have children cut pictures out of magazines of items that can be detected using either the sense of touch or smell. Examples include a picture of a furry cat and a picture of a rose. Other activities include asking children to describe various items they can explore with their hands and noses. Encourage them to use words like, "soft," "yummy" and "smooth" when describing the items.

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