5 Senses of Fun! An Indoor Activity For Every Sense!

TOUCH

What's that Touching My Face?

What You'll Need: 

• Feathers
• Cloth
• Cotton balls
• Anything that is small and textured
• Blindfold 

How to play: 

Have two players face each other, one blindfolded and the other with all of their collected items.

The player who is sighted gently brushes the objects, one by one, across the blindfolded player's cheek. The player with the items must handle them carefully as to not let the other player tell what each item is.

The blindfolded player guesses what the object is and when they guess correctly, the two players switch places.

Remember, the softer the preasure, the harder to tell what is touching your face. 

SIGHT

I Spy With My Little Eye

It's an oldie but a goodie so to speak. You remember, that game you used to play as a child. Have the children sit in a room. Deciding who is first to go is the most challenging part of the game. I tend to pick a number and then have the kids guess, the one who guesses the closest goes first. The spyer then looks around and find their chosen object and says "I spy with my little eye something ___________." They can insert a color or a size or a shape whatever they want to use to discribe what they have spied. The guessers then take turns asking if it's what they think it is. This game can last a while and can be made more interesting by allowing the spyer to take a walk around the inside of the house to pick their item and then allowing the guessers to go look for it. The bigger the space the more objects to guess!

TASTE & SMELL

Taste v. Smell

What you need:

• small cups
• cotton swabs
• different foods with similar textures (try items like ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and maple syrup.)
• pen and paper for charting

How to play:

• One person will be the taster and the other the tester, but you can switch at the end so both of you will get a chance to taste. 
• Draw a chart for recording your results. Write the name of each food you are testing in separate rows along the left side. Draw two columns for each taster. Label each column with the taster's name and "unplugged" or "plugged."
• Make some predictions about which foods will be easier and harder to identify. Will it be easier or harder to taste the foods with your nose plugged or unplugged?
• Blindfold the taster or just have her close her eyes.
• The tester then puts a little bit of one food on the taster's tongue with a cotton swab.
• The taster tries to identify which food she's tasting as well as whether it is salty, bitter, sweet or sour.
• The tester records the taster's answers on the chart for each food she tastes.
• When the taster has tried all the foods blindfolded, have her taste them each again but with her nose plugged as well. (Make sure you have her taste the foods in a different order.)
• Once the taster has tried each food with her nose plugged, switch who tastes and who tests and go through it all again.
• When you've both had a chance to taste, compare your results.

Which way was more challenging, with just eyes closed or with nose plugged too? Were certain foods especially hard or easy to taste? Try it again with crunchy foods or liquids!

Here's how this works:

A lot of what we think is taste is actually smell. That's why, when your nose is plugged, you can't taste some of the foods. It's because you can't smell what you are tasting.

HEARING

Telephone

How to Play:

Step 1

Sit in a circle or a row with players a foot or more apart.

Step 2

Choose one person to start. He comes up with a phrase or sentence — silly or serious, it doesn't matter.

Step 3

He leans over and whispers the phrase in the ear of the person next to him. That person whispers what she heard into the ear of the next player, and that continues around the circle.

Step 4

When the last person has whispered the phrase in the ear of the first person, he repeats it out loud. After the laughter dies down, he can tell everyone the original sentence or phrase.

Most fun with:

4 or more players

Kids ages 3 and up (a range of ages is best)

Any place the group can sit in a row or a big circle