Using Our 5 Senses

    We've been working on exploring our 5 senses - touch, taste, sight, hearing and smell. And Kay's favorite way of learning (and, okay, mine too!) is eating. And if the learning involves eating something she doesn't always get to have, all the better. 

  So we did this very simple activity - use all five senses to explore a tasty morsel. The cool thing about this "experiment" is that you can do it with just about anything, certainly any food. It's a great way to sneak in some fruit or vegetable your child might not normally eat, all in the name of science, of course!

  I started by asking her what were her 5 senses? When her first answer was "knees" I knew we had some work to do!

   I explained that we learn about the world through our senses, and then brought out a marshmallow and explained what we were going to do. This was shortly after our "Can you sink a marshmallow?" challenge, so when I asked when they felt like, she mentioned "gooey in water" along with squishy and mushy. And it smelled like...gum? Okay. 

  Next we used fruit chewies shaped like Disney Princesses. So what did they look like? Well, princesses, of course. She said they sounded like "Ssss." (Should I be worried?!) She also compared them often to gummy worms. 

   In any case, Kay had fun with this experiment/snack and it got her thinking too.
 Now she goes around saying things like, 
   "Look, Toby (our dog) is using is sense of smell!"
and 
  "Mama, you don't really need a light, just use your sense of touch!" 
Okay, may have taught her a little too well on that one!

(I'm including a blank chart in case you want to use it. Simple, but effective! You may need to resize it to fit on one page - I just used a hastily scribbled chart for us!)

This post is part of the Saturday Science Blog Hop, a weekly collaborative effort bringing you fun science ideas for kids! See what the co-hosts have been up to this week: 

           What Floats? What Sinks? {Stir the Wonder}