Storytime: 5 Senses

Age: 2-5 years
Time: 30 minutes

Sticking with the Fizz Boom Read! CSLP science theme, I have chosen seven topics for our summer. This week we talked about the five senses.


1) What's the weather? 

I made a weather chart for week one of summer reading, and am going to start each week this summer talking about the current weather. We sang this little song to go with it, to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine:

What's the weather, what's the weather,
What's the weather everyone?
Is it windy, is it cloudy, is there rain, or is there sun?


2) Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
To introduce the topic of our five senses, we talked about some of the cool things our bodies can do, and sang this classic motion song.


3) These Are My Glasses - Laurie Berkner
My current opening song. I start by asking them to show me their glasses and their book so that they remember the signs. We sing it through twice, then I ask them to put their "books" in their lap while we read our first book.

These are my glasses (make the letter o with each hand)
And this is my book (hands together)
I put on my glasses (put "glasses" over eyes)
And open up the book (open book hands)
Now I read read read (hold book up in front of face like reading)
And I look look look (put glasses over eyes and look around room)
I put down my glasses and… (lower glasses)
WHOOP! Close up the book. (clap as if closing a book quickly)


4) My Five Senses - Aliki

A simple book that describes our senses. I had the kids point at the parts of their body each time we talked about a sense -- pointing at eyes on the page about seeing, etc.


5) Five senses flannel
This idea is from Miss Meg's Storytime. Rather than creating all new flannel pieces, I raided what I already had in my drawer and pulled out things like a bird, flower, strawberry, rabbit, and ice cream cone. Then I printed out the senses words and flannel backed them. We looked at one item at a time and I went through the list - Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you smell it? Can you touch it? Can you taste it? and put up the correct words next to the item.

6) Rain - Manya Stojic

This book made a nice connection to last week's discussion of weather. The kids liked the big bold pictures of animals. It's a really neat book for describing how you can use all five of your senses to describe one thing.


7) Senses Hokey Pokey
You put your seeing eyes in, you put your seeing eyes out
You put your seeing eyes in, and you blink/shake them all about
You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about!

...touching fingers...
...smelling nose...
...listening ears...
...tasting tongue... (the kids LOVED this one, trying to sing with their tongue sticking out!)
...whole self!...


8) Senses on the Farm - Shelley Rotner

There are a couple other books in this series (Senses in the City and Senses at the Seashore), and I thought this one would be most relevant to the kids in our small town. I paperclipped a lot of the pages, choosing just two or three of each sense.


9) Senses stations and take-home activity
Instead of a craft this week, I set up five stations around the room. The kids could go to each station and do an activity related to one of their senses.

Cardboard, tree bark, smooth and rough stones,
nail file, steel wool, cotton balls, feather

Coins, jingle bells, cotton balls, LEGOs, corn, marbles

Cotton balls with lemon juice, vanilla extract, pepper, cinnamon, coffee

I managed to erase the pictures I took of sight and taste before getting them to my computer. Whoops. For sight, I listed 8 things for the kids to find in the painted mural around our room (a basketball, a rainbow, the letter T, etc.) like I did during my E is for Eyes storytime. For taste, I put out little plastic cups in three groups -- one had a few granules of sugar, another a bit of salt, and the third a tiny bit of unsweetened lemonade mix.

I had a lot of parents say they really liked the stations idea! It really reinforced what the five senses are. I also sent home a paper with some ideas of ways to use five senses at home, like describing tastes while eating and playing I Spy while on a walk.



Other senses ideas:
Five for a Little One - Chris Raschka
Senses at the Seashore - Shelley Rotner
Senses in the City - Shelley Rotner