Exploring the World with Our Senses
Lesson
Activity 1: Seeing is Believing
Activity 2: Camouflage and
Colour
Activity 3: Our World in
Colour
Materials Needed
None required
- Construction paper with pattern of birds (blue and
red)
- Variety of tissue paper, red, blue, and any other
two colours (cut in 4-cm squares)
- Brown construction paper
- Glue
- Scissors
- Paper to mount the tree on
- Colour chips from a paint store
- Food colouring
- Rectangular or square transparent plastic
containers with lids
Activity 4: Where Did the
- Water
Colour Go?
- Optional: colour filters (from Spectrum Scientific)
- Coloured cellophane name-tag holders (without
pins)
Note: There are a variety of materials to choose from.
- Objects that can be seen through and objects that
cannot – plastic pop bottles, clear plastic bags, pop
Activity 5: See-Through or Not
cans, paper, wax paper, paper towel rolls, plastic
wrap, aluminum foil, plastic tubs and lids
- Attribute hoops/sorting rings
- Plastic hand-held magnifiers or lenses from the bug
viewers
Activity 6: Let’s Look at
- Leaves, shells, or feathers
Leaves, Feathers, and Shells
- Plain paper
- Crayons
- Plastic hand-held magnifiers or lenses from the bug
Activity 7: Making the World
viewers (class set or enough for groups of two)
Larger
- Various objects to observe
- A set of opaque plastic or metal containers, each
filled with different object or substance that will
Activity 8: Strange Sounds
make a sound when the container is shaken;
suggested items could include sand, gravel, small
spherical rocks (pea gravel), different types of dried
beans and seeds, cotton balls, marshmallows, an
eraser, small plastic toys, small metal objects
(washers, bolts, screws) and keys
- A variety of materials that make various sounds
- Sandpaper blocks
- Combs
- Corrugated cardboard
- Aluminum pie plates
Activity 9: Scrapers and
- Pot covers
Clappers
- Plastic
- Aluminum foil
- Stones
- Wood
- Digital camera
- A tape or tapes with common sounds that children
Activity 10: Name That Sound
hear in their everyday lives
- Materials that make various sounds
- Wind-up toy
- Tin can
Activity 11: The Mystery
- Drum
Sound Box
- Glass bottle
- Plastic bottle
- Two objects being rubbed together
Activity 12: A Smell Chart
- Chart paper
Activity 13: Smells I Like
None required
- Three or four flavours of Kool-Aid (strawberry,
lime, grape, orange)
- Flour
Activity 14: Name That
- Salt
Flavour
- Water
- Vegetable oil
- Re-sealable plastic bags
- Paper bags
- Baby food containers or film canisters to make
smell jars
- Cotton balls
Activity 15: Smell Jars
- Scented liquids (detergent, vinegar, cloves,
peppermint flavouring, vanilla, lemon, or almond
extract, etc.)
Activity 16: Smells in Different
- Pictures of various locations within your
Places
community
- Pictures of various places within the school
- Pictures from within a home
Activity 17: Safety and Smell None required
Activity 18: Taste Vocabulary Chart paper
Activity 19: A Tasting Party
Various types of fruit
- Baby food containers
- Cotton swabs
- Tap water
- Sugar solution (15 mL of sugar to every 200 mL of
Activity 20: Mystery Jars
water)
- Concentrated lemon juice solution (several drops
of concentrated lemon juice added to water)
- Water and peppermint extract solution
- Fresh grapes
Activity 21: Sweet Treats
- Raisins
- Various types of fruit
Activity 22: Tasting without
- Various types of crackers
Seeing
- Various types of cereal
- Sandpaper
- Paper
- Fabric
- Foam
- Vegetable oil
Activity 23: Developing a
- Scissors
Touch Vocabulary
- Damp cloth
- Cotton ball
- Stone
- Pine cone
- Additional materials as suggested in procedures
- Cardboard boxes with a cut out hole
Activity 24: How Does It Feel?
- Everyday objects with different textures such as a
ball, an eraser, a pinecone, shells
- Crayons
Activity 25: Picture the
- Bond paper
Texture
- Objects from the texture collection
- A variety of materials such as screws, spiral pasta,
Activity 26: Sorting with Our
pasta in various colours and shapes, paint chips or
Senses
crayons to match the pasta
- Sorting rings
Activity 27: Size It Up
- Cardboard tubes of various sizes
Activity 28: Walking through
Our Senses
Activity 29: Using Our Senses
Activity 30: Seed Collection
Activity 31: Liquid Collection
- Objects with various weight/mass (cotton balls,
pennies, cereal)
- Balls of various sizes
- 2-L pop bottles
- Pencils of various lengths
- Boxes of various sizes
- Egg timer
- Science journal or activity sheet
- Painted sunglasses, blindfolds (Halloween masks),
hands to cover eyes
- Activity sheet
- Clipboards
- Sealable plastic bags
- Clear plastic bottles
- Sand (white, dark), flour, salt, cinnamon, sawdust,
rice (brown), cornmeal, oatmeal
- Hand magnifiers
- Pan balances
- Attribute hoops/sorting rings
- Various types of seeds (acorns, pinecones,
chestnuts, seeds from apples and oranges,
vegetable or flower seeds, etc.)
- Attribute hoops/sorting rings
- Clear pill bottles
- Ketchup cups
- Liquids (dish detergent, vinegar, corn syrup, syrup,
water, or water with food colouring