The Five Senses - Lesson 1: The Five Senses

BIG IDEAS: We learn about the world through our five senses. The number five has other names.

On this page
- Encountering the Idea
- Exploring the Idea
- Getting the Idea
- Closure and Assessment

Whole Group Activities

• Book: My Five Senses by Aliki
  
• Word tags: see, hear, feel, taste, smell, texture
  
• Collection of various objects that students can sort by shape, size,texture
  
• Chart for relevant words
  
• Laminated picture/diagrams of the ear, eye, nose, tongue, finger (to show feeling)
  
• Counters
  

Tell the students they will begin the new unit by going outside to take a little barefoot walking trip. Ask them to talk to each other about their experiences on the trip to help them remember everything they can about the trip. Students go on a walk for at least 15 minutes. Ask questions during the trip.

Once the class returns to the classroom, have students brainstorm by describing what they experienced, describing their trip. If the students don't mention each of the five senses, ask questions: Did you smell something? What did you hear? See? What did you feel? When you smelled the cafeteria food, could you taste it? Did you see a dog (some other animal)? How did you know it was a dog? Did you see the mountains? How far are they? What color is the sky? Did you see any cars? What were they doing? What parts of your bodies did you use to get all this information? Discuss how they learn from seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting.

The teacher develops a word bank or a chart using student responses. Tell students that at the learning centers they will complete many different activities that will help them learn more about how humans learn.

At the Art Center students cut out pictures from magazines that show people using the five senses.

At the Writing Center students complete frame sentences: "I see __________ with my eyes, I hear __________ with my ears," etc. Students supply the words. The teacher writes the words on a chart for students to use for this lesson and subsequent lessons.

At the Mathematics Center students sort objects by color, size, shape, texture, etc.

Students use the laminated pictures of the body organs that represent the five senses to show that the number five has other names such as two plus three and one plus four. Using the pictures to group, the students show that one plus four is the same as four plus one. Using cube counters, the students show that one row of five red cubes matches a row of four white and one yellow, three brown and two black, etc.

2. Read the book My Five Senses by Aliki to the students. Discuss the book. The students show the class the pictures they cut out of the magazines at the Art Center and why they chose those pictures. How were the people using their senses?

3. Collect student work for a class Big Book.

4. The students show the other members of the class how they sorted the objects in the Mathematics Center and explain why they chose those categories. How many categories did they form? How many objects did they put into each category? Did they put some objects into more than one category? Which ones? Why?

Oral Assessment

1. Why do we need our five senses?
   
2. What can we do with our senses?
   
3. Tell me two other names for the number five.
   

1. Assess the students' performance on the sorting task at the Mathematics Center.
   
2. Assess the students' performance on the writing task at the Writing Center.
   
3. The students, using cubes, show two other names for the number five.