Human Body: Senses

If you missed the other parts of our Human Body Study, you can see them here: Human Body – Doctor’s Bag, Human Body ~ Body Parts, Human Body: Bones, Joints and Muscles, Senses, Cells, Heart, Blood and Circulation, Digestive System and Nutrition, the Brain and Nervous System, the Skin, Hair and Nails, the Immune System and Germs, the Respiratory System, the Excretory System, Reproduction System and Dental.

 This week we have been learning about the Senses.

We did a fun experiment for each of the senses, starting with taste first. 

 TASTE

The boys did a blind taste test.

 

They covered their eyes and then I gave them a bit of food on a spoon to taste.

They then had to guess what they thought it was and write it down.

 

SIGHT

While talking about the eyes, I printed off a Free Eye Chart and placed it on the wall to see if they could read it. It gives you clear instructions on the website on how to best use this eye chart.

You can download the free Eye Chart from: Deakin Optometry

They also did a colour test from: Playbuzz

 

I also found a braille sheet and we talked about how it works. They found it really hard to work out the letters with their fingers while their eyes were closed. 

We also made mini coloured telescopes. On the end of them we held coloured cello paper on with a rubber band. When they looked through them, everything was blue or red or yellow. I even painted one with glitter, so they were seeing bright shiny dots everywhere.

Another activity we did, which I forgot to take photos of, was blind drawing. I covered their eyes with a blind fold and told them to draw certain shapes. R drew all of his on top of each other, while B drew all of his all over the page. Then they tried drawing their own picture to see how it would turn out.

We also talked about the Celery Colour Changing and the Flower Colour Changing activities we have completed and how you could see the colours in the celery and the flowers change.

 

 TOUCH

For touch, we did a touch test. 

I placed items, such as marshmallows, rocks, pom poms and shaving cream, into different brown paper bags.

The boys closed their eyes and put their hand into the bag and felt what was in it.  Then they wrote down what they thought it was. When they were finished, I emptied all the bags and they were able to check how many they guessed right.

 

 

SMELL

The boys also enjoyed completing a smell test.

For this I placed a cotton ball into a plastic cup and dropped drops of essences and perfume onto the cotton balls. I used things like vanilla, coffee, strawberry, peppermint, coconut and peach essence, sprinkled pepper and cinnamon on some of the cotton balls and sprayed perfume on another. The boys did close their eyes while smelling some of the smells which changed the colour of the cotton ball as otherwise it would be too easy for them. It was really funny to see their guesses that they wrote down. For example, they thought the vanilla essence was coffee and the peppermint was candy cane. They both really loved the smell of the cinnamon.

HEARING

For this test, I places some rubber bands around a shoe box. I tried to choose different colours, thicknesses and lengths so that we could get a variety of sounds.

The boys also had a great time with these cup walkie talkies.

We also remade our glow in the dark xylophone. This is a lot like the shoebox guitar (above). As the glasses are lightly tapped, they make different sounds depending on the amount of water in them.

While we were learning about the senses, we also looked at the body parts that are used with the senses.  We used these foam puzzles to learn about the tongue, eye and ear.

 

We also used this model of an eye to learn about how the eye works. The boys were really surprised to hear that our eyes actually see images upside down and our brain changes them to the right way.

 

We completed this mini pack on Senses and a Human Body Senses Book which you can download by clicking the link below:

 

 

You can also purchase my 5 Senses Pack (for ages 2-7): 5 Senses

You can check out more activities on my Human Body Pinterest Board:

Follow Stacey Jones (A Moment In Our World)’s board Science – Human Body on Pinterest.

We have had a great week learning about our senses and can’t wait to see what human body part we look at next week.