Our 5 Senses

We have been working on learning our 5 senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing, and seeing.   I have been quizzing little one by asking questions like "What do we hear with?  What do we taste with?  What do we smell with?" etc.  It seems like a basic concept but it can be challenging for little ones to figure out.  

I am going to try to link it to religion and God as much as possible by asking questions like "Why did God give us eyes? (to see his beautiful creations - to see Jesus on the Cross); Why did God give us hands? (to do holy works - to make the Sign of the Cross); Why did God give us tongues? (to taste wonderful flavors that God made - to receive Jesus' body during Communion)" etc.   I have started to introduce those religious concepts to LO but it hasn't been the focus yet.  It's in my plans ;) 

Yesterday we did a small lesson on tasting and smelling.   We used the PBS Dinosaur Train Lesson found here.   I explained to LO how our sense of smell is stronger than our sense of taste.  I also explained to him how you have to focus on your senses to make a hypothesis of what things are.  I used an onion, some cheese, and some tomatoes (all things that were easily accessible in my fridge).  I put them in individual little plastic bowls.  I then blindfolded LO.  He did NOT like that at all!  It took a lot of convincing that he did not need his sense of sight to do the activity!  When he finally let me blindfold him, I then held each object up to his nose and told him to smell it.  I then put a small piece at a time in his mouth and had him taste it.  The whole time I was asking him what he tasted and smelled.   He didn't get the onion at all and he certainly was not a fan of tasting it.  He got the tomato almost immediately.  He has always LOVED tomatoes.   And the cheese he got by the sense of taste, but not by smell.   Overall I think he learned something and I plan to continue doing small experiments with him like this to work more on the skills.