I Am Special- The Five Senses Lesson Plans

The five Making Sense Lesson Plans explore this theme further by looking at the five senses and teaching children to wonder and delight in their own abilities to sensually discover and appreciate the things around them. Although I believe that children need to learn to control their expressions of enthusiasm and passion, they also need to be inspired to utilise them and nurture a love for life.

Sadly many children have little opportunity to use their senses to the full, due to travelling from a to b in a hurry and too often in enclosed vehicles where they are hardly able to see their world, let alone feel, smell, taste or listen to it. Our modern computers provide many amazing opportunities for us all, but we need to treasure and guard opportunities to experience the world naturally rather than virtually.

I hope you have as much fun with these Making Sense Lesson Plans as we did in creating and testing them! This lesson plan can be used either as an introduction or summing up.

Hide an assorment of soft toy animals around the room and get the children to bring them back into the group, saying what each animal is.

Can they see, hear, smell, taste and touch? How do they do these things differently to us?

Put them away and explain that they will be playing a role in the story today.

1. Head, shoulders, knees and toes (let them move around with the actions)
2. If I were a butterfly, I'd thank you Lord for giving me wings
3. Who's the king of the jungle, who's the king of the sea, who's the king of the universe and who's the king of me.
4. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands, could be adapted to, if you're special/loved and you know it clap your hands...
5. He's got the whole world in his hands

These each go into detail with the lesson plans below, by Joanna14:

• Look And Learn By Seeing
• A Kids Adventure Exploring The Sense Of Taste
• The Sense Of Touch Lesson Plan
• A Making Sense Of Hearing Lesson Plan
• A Making Sense Of Smell Lesson Plan

Give them the opportunity to hear the story of creation (see above). They are guaranteed to love this version! It lends itself to using props and lots of drama to get them involved and it also gives the scientific view of our need to look after the earth.

• When it says that light was created- you could turn on the lights!
• Use balls and a globe for the sun, moon and earth
• Use a waterpistol and water spray-bottle for water, rain and mist
• Use a large magnifying glass and look down from standing on a chair at a green cloth/blanket on the floor for forests and plant life
• Get them all to roar when the big lion appears
• Use a wig for animals with lots of hair, plus an assortment of soft toys for some of the animals
• Use your arms to make the wide mouth of a crocodile or to express their large size
• Make appropriate animal noises and hisses
• Fall off a chair to illustrate birds that can't fly
• Flap wings to fly whilst mouthing a fish
• At the end, use a big plastic mirror (or the one in the book) to peer in
• Take your hat off to the best masterpiece at the end!

Give each child a paper plate and an assortment of wool, crepe paper, felt pens etc.

Get them to draw a picture of the world (copy from globe or storytime book above) on one side of their plate and then make their favorite animal face on the other. You could write a caption on a sticky label to stick on if there is room.

Alternative Arts & Crafts for older children

Cover a blown-up balloon with paper mache (glue on torn-up pieces of newspaper) and when dried paint it sea blue then draw shapes of the seven continents, colour and glue on. Afterwards you can use a small pin to pop the balloon inside.