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Lesson Planning for Teaching the Five Senses

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Lesson Planning for Teaching the Five Senses

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Inspirational Ideas for Lesson Planning within the Classroom

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The best way to teach children about their senses is to have them use them. Actually smell, see, taste, hear, and touch. Teachers of two-year-olds need to keep the lessons very simple. Teachers of three- and four-year-olds should expand the activities as the children move through the early childhood center.

Here are some tips for teaching two-year-olds the five senses:

1. Start with labeling the body parts. Use a felt board shaped like a face and have children place cutouts (nose, eyes, ears, mouth, and so on) in the proper place.

2. Then lead the children in games where they touch or identify their own body parts (kind of like Simon Says, but forget the rules for two-year-olds). Keep it short.

3. Once all the children clearly know where everything is, begin to talk about the senses: "eyes are for seeing, noses for smelling, etc."

4. Continue with the basics. Focus on --

Seeing and not seeing -- Use blindfolds.

Simple tastes (sweet, sour, salty) -- Have them taste lots of food and spices.

Familiar smells (things they smell often, like peanut butter, baby products) -- Have them smell items and tell them what they are smelling.

Textures (soft, hard, scratchy) -- Have them feel fur, sand paper, and other textured objects.

Sounds (loud, soft) -- Have them make loud noises and listen to soft music.

5. Work on vocabulary development. For two-year-olds, the key is giving them the language and expanding their vocabulary. Keep it simple -- stay with familiar objects. It is most important for two-year-olds to understand the things that are in their immediate environment. The children will become frustrated if the teacher presents experiences that are too abstract.

Teaching two-year-olds the five senses takes about two to three weeks. They need a couple of days to fully understand some of the ideas. They'll let the teacher know when they are ready to move to the next concept.

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Shyrelle Eubanks is a National Education Association staff person in the Student Achievement Department and a specialist in early childhood development.

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The best way to teach children about their senses is to have them use them. Actually smell, see, taste, hear, and touch. Teachers of two-year-olds need to keep the lessons very simple. Teachers of three- and four-year-olds should expand the activities as the children move through the early childhood center.

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Five Senses Song | Fun Educational Video For Kids

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Teaching Students to Understand Different Emotions/Feelings

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Simple books to read aloud during class time that revolve around senses.

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Simple books to read aloud during class time that revolve around senses.

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Graphic Organizer for Students to Complete after Read Alouds

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Graphic Organizer for Students to Complete after Read Alouds

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Have students complete the Graphic Organizer after reading stories and poems involving emotions and senses. They may work with a buddy or in a small group.

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This Assignment will be Completed Throughout the Lesson in Class and at Home.

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Craft and Structure:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.4
Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.4
Addressing sensory skills within Language Arts

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Identifying level of proficiency within this concept/skill.

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Identifying level of proficiency within this concept/skill.

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An activity to go over the five senses.

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Students complete activity during class time about feelings.

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Representation of Emotions:  Creating a Facial Expression for Students to Utilize and Understand Emotions.

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Reinforcing the Senses at Home

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Encouraging Activities at Home for the Senses and Reading Comprehension Skills

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Encouraging Activities at Home for the Senses and Reading Comprehension Skills

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Utilizing Homework as a Reteaching Tool

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Utilizing Technology to Assist with Learning Feelings and Emotions

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Utilizing Technology to Assist with Learning Feelings and Emotions

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This activity may be utilized for all learners.

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Learn with Rufus: Feelings and Emotions aims to help children learn the facial expressions that correspond to happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprised, and disgusted. The game is highly customizable to meet the needs of children with varying skills, ability levels, and learning styles.

iTunes link:

Review link:

Graphic:

Price:

Grade level:

Topic or skill:

Device:

Google Play link:

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Learn with Rufus: Feelings and Emotions aims to help children learn the facial expressions that correspond to happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprised, and disgusted. The game is highly customizable to meet the needs of children with varying skills, ability levels, and learning styles.

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Singing about Emotions with Cue Cards

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I was first introduced to this idea several months ago by our Parents as Teachers home educator. I wanted to make our own version and couldn't remember the details so I did an online search for "if you're happy emotions" and found two helpful resources. This page shows the basic lyrics and some visual cue "faces" you can make. Another page gave me the brilliant idea to simplify the lyrics to make them more accessible to children with speech delays. Here's the project.

If You're Happy Song - Emotions Version with Visual Cue Cards

Making the Cue Cards

Group Planning

I sat down with the kids and drew a happy face. I asked them how the person felt and they responded "happy." I asked them "How else can people feel?" They responded "sad" and I asked how the face would be different if the person were sad. They told me a frown (and demonstrated for me). I made a sad face with a frown. We then worked together to discuss, demonstrate, and draw the other four emotions (sleepy, surprised, scared, and mad). We also chose the color for each emotion. I let the kids choose and so our colors are a bit unorthodox.

Make and assemble fronts and backs of Cue Cards

I then drew the faces on the circles and wrote the matching emotion and action on the back as a cue for myself when I was holding them up for the kids.

Identify Emotions / Sing the Song

There are a wide variety of activities to do with these cue cards.

1. Adult hold up the cards and leads the song.

2. Distribute the cards to the everyone (we had two each) and take turns holding one up and letting the person holding the card be the leader.

3. Use the cards to help the children learn to identify emotions (without singing) in flash card mode.

4. Have the children mimic the facial expression of the card you hold up.

5. Let the children make an expression and you try to guess which one they're making by holding up the matching card. They get to tell you if you're right or wrong. Get it wrong on purpose sometimes so they can enjoy telling you no.

Song Lyrics

You sing the song to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands. If you are a teacher, parent, or early childhood educator who has no need to simplify the lyrics, just use the original wording. I'll give the simplified version in a bit.

Here are the originals:

1. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...

2. If you're sad and you know it say "boo hoo"...

3. If you're mad and you know it stomp your feet...

4. If you're scared and you know it say "oh no"...

5. If you're sleepy and you know it take a nap (or close your eyes, or make a yawn)...

6. If you're surprised and you know it say "oh my"...

Here is how to simplify the lyrics:
If you are doing this activity with children who have speech delays, slow it way down and encourage them to sing along. (Or at least repeat "boo hoo," "oh my", and "oh no" when cued.) Once they have learned the song encourage singing by doing the activity where they get to hold the cue cards and lead the singing in turn.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands, clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.

If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo", say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".

And so on...

SLP Notes: This activity is great. You hit speech, language, vocabulary, and pragmatics all at once and can emphasize whichever is most important for your goals with a particular child. It can be adapted high (original version, fast pace, child led). It can also be adapted at a mid-level (modified version, medium pace, cued verbal participation). It can be adapted very low as well with modified version, slow pace, and only gestural participation or cued vocalizations (yawn, crying, snoring, exclamations of fear or surprise) to work on turn taking. Even using the activity to draw the child's attention to your facial expressions could help you work on eye contact if your goals are at that level. For vocabulary you get the emotions themselves, but also the parts of the face including eyebrows and terms like smile and frown.

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I was first introduced to this idea several months ago by our Parents as Teachers home educator. I wanted to make our own version and couldn't remember the details so I did an online search for "if you're happy emotions" and found two helpful resources.

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Working with Words and Expressions to Understand Emotions in English