LESSON PLAN – the five senses
Aim
The students are to learn about the five senses through exercises.
Level
A1
Content - Subject
Science
Communication Language
Comparative and superlative adjectives: longer/ longest- shorter /
shortest – higher/highest – silent / more silent
Directions: turn right, turn left, one step forward, walk forward, stop
Instructions: use small steps, be careful, a little to the…, slowly
Approx. time overall
4 hrs 15 min
Plan
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Evaluation
Short Description
The sense of hearing
The sense of smell
The sense of taste
The sense of sight
The sense of feeling
Links to Activities
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
Activity 4
Activity 5
Activity 1 – 5 senses
Procedure
The teacher introduces the five senses and talks with the class about
when we use each sense.
The sense of hearing:
In which direction?
The class stands in a circle. One student stands in the middle
blindfolded. The teacher points at one of the students in the circle and
he or she says the name of the student in the middle. The student then
has to point in the direction of the speaker. Try it two more times.
Make it more difficult by asking the student in the middle to hold a
hand against one ear. Try the exercise two more times.
Questions to the exercise:
When did you best hear the direction from which the sound came
from: when you used just one ear or both ears?
When did you best hear who made the sound: when you used one ear
or both?
Use your hearing to get though a labyrinth
Approx. time
Level
Learning outcome
Indicators
Materials
Back to Top
Make a labyrinth in your classroom or in the gym. The teacher draws a
labyrinth on the floor. Now, in pairs, the students have to get through
the labyrinth without walking into the “walls”. The difficult part is that
one of them is blindfolded and the other one has to talk him or her
through it, using commands such as: turn right, turn left, one step
forward, walk forward, stop, use small steps, be careful etc.
60 mins
A1
The students learn:
 How we use our hearing
 How to move around by only using the sense of hearing
 To guide another by only using instructions
The students
 Get through the labyrinth
 Guide each other
 Understand the exercises
Chalk
blindfolds
Activity 2 – 5 senses
Procedure
The sense of smell:
Before making the experiment the teacher talks with the class about
the sense of smell. When do we use it? With what do we smell? What
is a nice/bad smell? Use flashcards to illustrate the different smells.
What does it smell of?
First you are going to make cup-sets for this
exercise. You do it by taking two plastic cups
and placing them on top of each other. Put
the item to be smelt in the bottom cup. In
the upper cup you have to make small holes
in the bottom to let the smell pass through.
In this way, it is impossible to see the thing
you are going to smell. Make these cup-sets
for each smell you are going to test.
You have to use 5-8 different things with a distinctive smell like citrus,
cheese, vinegar, coffee, vanilla, spices and eraser. Place each thing in a
separate cup-set.
Worksheet 1 includes these exercises:
What does each cup smell of?
The teacher then mixes two things – students try to guess what the
two things are.
Approx. time
Learning outcome
Indicators
Materials
45 min
The students learn that:
 They can smell different things
 Some smells are more dominant than others
The students:
 Understand the experiment
 Dare to smell to the cups
 Try to answer the questions
Worksheet 1
Flashcards of the things to smell .
Plastic cups
5-8 different things to smell
flashcards http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/senses.php
Back to Top
Activity 3 – 5 senses
Procedure
The sense of taste:
Introduce the 4 different flavours we can taste. Sweet, sour, salty and
bitter. Use flashcards to hang in the classroom. The students now have
to testwhere, on their tongue, they can taste each flavour.
Before starting the experiment, the teacher pours different kinds of
liquid in 6 glasses, numbered 1 - 6.
Now the students dip cotton buds in the liquid and afterwards place
them on their tongue to find out where they can taste the liquid, and
what it is. Use Worksheet 2
Afterwards use the INSIDE/OUTSIDE CIRCLE to get all the class to talk
about their experiences. Let them keep their worksheet with them.
Students stand in two concentric circles around the classroom.
Students in the inside circle face out, facing a student standing on the
outside circle.
1. Students from the inside circle share information with their
partners.
2. Students switch roles; the outside circle learners now share
while their partners listen.
3. Students rotate to work with new partners – rotate four people
ahead to a new partner – vary by changing the number of
positions advanced or switch the direction of the rotation; class
counts aloud the number of positions they are moving so
everyone knows when to stop. “One, two, THREE!” (Movement
energises students.)
Approx. time
Learning outcome
Indicators
After this exercise the class discusses the experiment and the students
draw conclusions about where on the tongue each flavour can be
tasted.
45 mins
The students learn:
 About the tongue
 Where on the tongue we can taste each kind of flavour
 To draw conclusions
The students:
 Use their worksheet and mark where they can taste each liquid
Materials
Back to Top
 Can follow instructions
 Talk in English about their experiences
Cotton buds
Glasses with numbers
Different kind of liquid
Worksheet 2
Flashcards http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/senses.php
Activity 4 – 5 senses
Procedure
The sense of sight
The teacher talks with the students about the eyes. What do we use
them for? Can we live without them? What would that be like?
Together the class works on worksheet 3 and talks about each picture
and what they can see.
Approx. time
Learning outcome
Indicators
Materials
Back to Top
45 mins
The students learn:
 The importance of our eyes
 How we can cheat our eyes
The students:
 Understand the activities
Worksheet 3
Ruler
Activity 5 – 5 senses
Procedure
The sense of feeling
The teacher talks with the class about the sense of feeling; how a
person can feel heat or cold through the skin and also feel the shapes
of things and, through that, recognizes what he or she is touching. Use
flashcards to give the students words to describe the things they are
about to touch. Let the students, in pairs, try to describe a thing of
their own choosing.
Approx. time
Learning outcome
Indicators
Materials
Back to Top
To illustrate, the teacher has hung 5 ropes (approx. 1.5 m each) in the
classroom and collected 15 different things to hang on the ropes –
three things on each rope. To hide these things the teacher places a
piece of fabric over the ropes. Before starting the exercise the teacher
introduces sentences like : “I think, this is a….”, “Yes you are right”, “No
it is not a…., It is a…….”. The teacher also has to make sure the students
know the English words for all the things underneath the fabric.
The class is divided into 5 groups. One group per rope. One student in
each group is blindfolded. The blindfolded students are to follow the
rope and when he/she feels a thing on the rope he/she has to try to
guess what it is and tell the group. When the student has guessed all
three items, the group rotates to another rope and a new student is
blindfolded and has to guess what is placed on the rope underneath
the fabric. Continue until all the students have tried it.
45 mins
The students learn:
 To follow an instruction
 About the sense of feeling
 That the sense of feeling is in our skin
 To talk together in English using short sentences
The students:
 Enjoy the activity
 Can tell the group what they find underneath the fabric in
English
15 different things
5 blindfolds
5 ropes (1.5meters)
5 pieces of fabric
Flashcards http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/senses.php