Preschool Activities About Smell, Taste and Touch

After introducing the sense of smell to your students, try some of these fun activities.

• On separate cotton balls put some perfume, lemon juice, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, cinnamon and garlic powder. Place each one in a clean baby food jar. Pass the jars around to the students one at a time to smell and then discuss what they think the scent is. When you have tried all of the jars talk about which smell each student liked the most and the least. You can also make two sets of jars with these scents or new ones and put them at a center for the students to match.

• Mix one packet of Kool-Aid with about one tablespoon of water to make yummy smelling paints. Use several different colors of Kool-Aid and give your preschoolers paintbrushes and paper so that they can make their own sweet smelling masterpieces.

• Talk about which smells your students like and dislike. You write their ideas on a t-chart. You might also discuss what different smells remind them of and let the students draw pictures of some of the things that they like to smell.

Children will have fun learning about taste with these activities.

• Start by teaching your students that our tongues are covered in taste buds that allow us to taste things that are salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Provide students with examples of each flavor to taste. Lemons, pretzels, unsweetened cocoa, and sugar work well. Talk about the foods and whether or not the students liked them. Then give each students a paper in the shape of a tongue and pictures of the four foods they tried and have them glue them on the tongue. You can also provide them with labels that say salty, sweet, sour and bitter to glue under the correct pictures.

• To teach students that our sense of smell helps us taste, blindfold one student and have him hold his nose. Then give him a flavored jellybean to taste, Can he guess the flavor? Then try it without holding his nose. This would be a good activity for small groups so that everyone can try. You could also use jarred baby food for the tasting.

• Make a taste sorting game. Give the students pictures of different foods and have them sort them into the four tastes - salty, sweet, sour and bitter.

Finish up your unit about the five senses with these activities involving touch.

• Make guessing boxes or bags. Place a few items inside and have students reach in and try to guess what's inside just by feeling it. Some items to use are a bar of soap, cotton balls, a pine cone, a ball, or a rock.

• Make a book of textures. Discuss different textures like soft, rough, smooth and bumpy. Give each student a small book with the different textures written on each page. Then give them a cotton ball, a piece of sandpaper, a piece of wax paper and a piece of corrugated cardboard. Have them glue each item onto the page with the texture that matches it.

• Provide your students with a variety of art materials and let them make texture collages. Give them pieces of fabric, sand paper, glitter, pipe cleaners, ribbons, sequins and other items with different textures to glue onto a piece of card stock.

• Finger painting is another fun way to explore the sense of touch.

Your students are sure to learn a lot with these activities for preschool children about the five senses.