Senses: Touch

We were learning about letter M this week, so some of these activities doubled for both themes. 

For our starter activity we had a mitten match. The boys were able to feel the soft mittens (just cut outs from felt), and also the hard clothespins. I had them all tossed into a basket, and they had to find the matches and hang them on the line together. This is a great small motor activity.

To introduce the theme I had a box with various hard and soft objects, like a block, cotton ball, marble, sock, etc.I let each child have a turn to reach into the box (without looking) and choose an object, and then tell us how it felt, hard, soft, etc.


I found this fun idea at Perpetual Preschool.  We painted a giant mitten while wearing mittens. I cut out mittens as wide as my butcher paper roll. Then I went through our mitten and glove bin and found the ones with no matches. If your's are all matched, no worries, all paint washed out anyhow. The kids loved this activity. To contrast the difference in touch, you could have them paint something else with just their fingers.

 I'm not sure why I don't have a picture of this, but its one of my favorite preschool activities (if I keep saying that, you won't believe me, maybe I just love it all!). We did 5 senses Gingerbread men. I found this idea years ago at Everything Preschool. I planned for the 5 senses themes to end in December, so that I could do this activity. I cut gingerbread men out of sand paper (touch). We glued jingle bells onto them(sound), rubbed cinnamon sticks onto them (smell),  and you can hear the sound of coloring or rubbing the cinnamon stick on them, and then you can see the finished product. These turn out darling, and crayon shows up well on them for extra details.

The second day we made texture books, I found this cute idea and other senses themed activities at Perpetual Preschool. I had a variety of different things cut out, and made a small book with blank pages. The children got to choose which things they wanted in their books. Then I labeled their pages, ______ feels _______. I gave some adjective suggestions, like rough, soft, smooth, bumpy, etc. I included squares of fabric, foil, sand paper, feathers, etc. Anything goes.

Because it was winter I also let the children play with snow, one hand had a mitten on, and one hand was naked, so that they could feel the difference.