The Five Senses

This week we studied the five senses (in addition to our usual studies).  Monday, we began the study by reading Let’s Read and Find Out Science 1:  My Five Senses.  The boys loved the illustrations in the book.  The text was quite simple.  Then we began a lesson about our sense of touch.  We made slime out of Borax, Elmer’s Glue, water and food coloring.  Both boys enjoyed this but Owen isn’t a fan of having dirty hands…Evan was the same way when he was younger, and still is at times.  We talked about how it felt slimy and squishy.  We read a little blurb about the largest organ of the body and our sense of touch in a book we have about the human body.  I tried to find some good free on-line videos to go along with this but I ran short on time and couldn’t find anything that would work.  We discussed why God gave us the sense of touch for safety, enjoyment, and functionality.  I got the recipe for the slime at Our Best Bites.

Slime VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On Tuesday we learned about our sense of taste.  How did we learn about this?  Tongue mapping, that’s how.  I set out four different taste profiles:  salty, sweet, sour and bitter (salt water, sugar water, pickle juice and vanilla extract).  Evan dipped a Q-tip in the liquid and dabbed it on different parts of his tongue.  He then marked on the professionally made hand-drawn tongue where he was able to taste each particular flavor the most.  I read another blurb from the above mentioned body book, this time about…you guessed it, the tongue.  We discussed the taste buds and where on the tongue the different taste profiles are the strongest.  We talked about why God gave us the sense of taste…mostly for enjoyment, imho .

Tongue Mapping VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Wednesday was all about Smell.  I grabbed several different items for Evan to smell (with a blindfold on of course) and he had to guess what he was smelling.  What did he smell?

Of  course I had to give him some stinky things to smell, otherwise it would have been a bit boring don’t you think?  We learned a little about the nose from the human body book as well.
For sight, I blindfolded him and told him to walk from point A to point B just by using his other senses.  We read a little from that body book about the eyes.  We discussed how important our vision is.  I explained that there are people that, for whatever reason have lost or never had this sense and that they learn how to do things a little differently than we do.

Blindfolded VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The final sense, hearing, did not go the way I would have liked.  My plan was to do that nifty experiment where you put the corn starch mixture on a subwoofer and watch it DANCE, add a little food coloring and BE AMAZED.  Just one small problem…we don’t have a subwoofer…plan squashed .  Instead, we made a water xylophone.

		Water Xylophone VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We played the cups and listened to the differences in tone.  Then we poured water from one cup to another and talked about the changes in tone.  Then, we went to the computer and played around with the Harmonic Series.  We also checked out an Interactive Sound Ruler.  The boys both enjoyed this.
If you have a subwoofer and would like to do the cool sound experiment that we weren't able to do, you can find intructions for that at Housing A Forest.

Interactive Sound Websites VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We finished the whole thing off by doing something that requires ALL 5 senses…POPCORN.  Yes!  You watch it pop, you hear it pop, you MOST DEFINITELY smell it pop and then you touch it as you pick it up to pop it in your mouth for the best part…TASTE .