Sensory Ideas?

[Elizabethjstb]

Hi Everyone!

I'm doing my diploma at the moment, and I've been given sensory for my learning centre at TAFE for our playgroup, i'm trying to steer clear from the obvious which is "Touch" could anyone toss me some ideas that would be fabulous

love a very sleepy and crazy Beth xo

[Lorina]

What about smell for a sensory experience. You can get a variety of essence (vanilla, jasmine, squeeze a little lemon, perfume etc). Add these to cotton balls in individual containers and get he children to smell them and try to guess the smell...

I just thought of another idea... You can add each smell onto a cotton ball, stick the cotton ball onto a square piece of cardboard, then get images of the object each smell is and stick them each onto a separate piece of cardboard.. Then when they smell the cotton ball they have to match it with the correct picture... Hopefully you get what I mean otherwise this is going to sound really weird...

,
L.A

[muttley]

How about doing something around taste?
You could try different foods with the children - sweet/sour, hard/soft - and ask them before they taste something what they think it will be.
You could include healthy choices like cauliflower versus a strawberry for example

[Lorina]

Taste is also a good one. You can blind fold the children and get them to taste different things and see if they can recognize what they are tasting. It will be a good learning experience to document as well. How funny if you were to get a photo of a child's "sour face" while they lick a lemon!

,
L.A

[cathiek]

I know one that is good for all senses. Have an assistant start popping some popcorn (air popped ) out of sight of the children. The children use their ears to work out what the noise is, their noses to smell what the smell is and try and guess what it is. They can then use touch, sight and taste to feel, look at and EAT the popcorn. I get my kids to use describing words to make a list. It sounds like (popping, crashing, banging, it smells like butter, whatever they say, it looks like clouds, cotton balls, it feels like hard, soft, squishy, whatever and it tastes like....
Also Mr Potato head dolls are good for senses, put their eyes in what do we use these for, put their mouth in what do we use these for etc.

[catchmeifucan]

Cooking is one of the best activities that uses all senses.

Another smell activity can be to make different batches of play dough (in different colours) and add different aromas to these.

For an art idea you could make edible paint.

[Esther_te82]

Hey there! Have you though of using dry ice? But please make sure to read about safety first.
Good luck and keep us posted!

[Lorina]

Hey there! Have you though of using dry ice? But please make sure to read about safety first.
Good luck and keep us posted!

Dry ice... I've seen it used on Masterchef but have no idea on how to use it with the children... Looks pretty dangerous but pretty fascinating for the children. I'm sure there are lots of experiments that can be done using dry ice...

,
L.A

[Esther_te82]

Yes there are lots of them. You can start with Awesome Dry Ice Experiments by Steve Spangler Science. Good luck!