SENSE OF HEARING- Ask each child for "homework" to bring in something that makes noises. Ask them to keep their noisemakers a surprise by bringing them in a bag. One by one, ask the children to share their noisemakers with the class in a way that the noisemaker cannot be seen. Ask other children to guess what the noisemaker is.
SENSE OF SMELL- Have the children take turns wearing a blindfold or closing their eyes tightly while you or other children give them interesting things to identify by smell. Try bananas, peanut butter, lemon, oranges, a candy cane, and coconut.
FEELIE BOX- Prepare a feelie box. Have the children take turns placing their hands in the box and guessing what the object is soft, hard, etc., then naming the object.
SMELL CANS- Introduce the children to different smells. Make smell containers. Use small bottles with lids and put cotton balls in the bottles saturated with a scent. Possible scents to use include perfume, vanilla extract, and shaving lotion. You may also chop uo small pieces of onion.
SHAKE CANS- Take three 35mm film containers and fill one with pennies, one with sand, and one with marbles, put lid on. Shake each container to try and guess what is in the container.
EXPLORING TEXTURES- Make small pillows out of different textures of fabric. For example, you could make pillows out of nylon, cotton, corduroy, fake fur, flannel and denim. Have the children feel the different texture pillows. Encourage them to describe each one on how it feels to them.
HANDS ON TEXTURES BULLETIN BOARD- Cut a sheet of poster board into the shape of a hand, and mount it on the wall. Encourage the children to bring in fabrics and papers with interesting textures. Attach these items to the hand cutout to form a texture collage.
FIND THE CLOCK- This activity provides a means to use the ears. By listening carefully, the children attempt to locate the source of sound that has been carefully hidden in the room. Hurry and find the clock before the alarm goes off and wakes the baby! The baby has been put down for a nap. Mother suddenly remembers that the alarm clock is set to ring in 5 minutes. She begins to search for the clock, but can't find it anywhere. Let's help her find it before the alarm goes off. The clock should be set and hidden in the room. It does not have to be visible. However it should be audible when the children get close to it. If the alarm goes off before the clock is found, try again.
MYSTERY NOSES- Take close-up snapsots of the children's faces. After the film is devloped, ake ach phots and frame it with paper so that the only visible thing is the nose. Show one of the framed pictures to the children. Let them choose who they think the mystery nose belongs to. Keep a tally of the choices. Now remove the frame.....were they right? You can also do their ears or their eyes.
