Checking out the five senses at HAFTR Early Childhood

Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway Early Childhood students learned about the five senses – hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching – through the body’s ears, eyes, nose, tongue and hands, throughout the last week in May.

For taste, each child was given a plate with a bit of salt and a bit of sugar.  After examining both, the students realized they look exactly alike and do not smell so the only way to tell the difference is to use their tongues. 

After a vote, most of the children liked the taste of sugar more than salt. Chocolate chip cookies were baked and it was decided the aroma was “just amazing.”

The children learned about touch by handling a variety of items with different textures – cotton balls for soft, a wooden block for hard, the abrasive side of a sponge for scratchy, Play-Doh for squishy and a cupcake wrapper for bumpy – that were inside the “Magic Touch Box.”

Using the sense of sight, the children went on a walk outside to view all the world’s colors. The students then closed their yes to focus on hearing the sounds around them. They heard birds chirping, children playing, vehicles driving by and airplanes flying overhead.

In the classroom, the kids played musical instruments such as bells, maracas, shakers, tambourines and triangles. They also sang and played loudly, then softly. A discussion revolved around the sounds that were made and whether the children like them or not.