The 5 Senses

In order to become thoughtful scientists, we have to understand how our 5 senses help us.  We took some time to think about each sense and use them during multiple investigations.  Here is some of what we did.


We took eggs filled with various materials and described what we heard.  Loud, soft, crinkly, clangy, booming, splashing, high pitch, and empty were words we used to describe what we heard.  We then matched the eggs with pictures and were surprised at how accurate we were!

Before we analyzed our sense of sight, we started discussing adjectives we could use to describe objects.  We did this with each sense before we investigated.  What does an apple look like?  How about a peacock feather?  A bowl of jello?  We stretched our brains and looked at zoomed in pictures of everyday objects.  Without knowing what the object was we couldn't call it a strawberry, but we could say it is red and looks wet with yellow spots.

It is easiest to think of adjectives for the sense of touch because it is something we are all very familiar with.  Things can be soft, hard, smooth, rough, moist, rigid, jagged, hollow, squishy, fluffy, and gooey.  We can feel things with our hands, but also with our skin on other parts of our body.  Ever felt a cool pillow on your cheek?  Or how about a brush through your hair?  We took familiar (and some unfamiliar) objects and put them in a bag.  Using just our sense of touch we tried our best not to guess what the object was and only describe what we felt.  

Smells are all around us.  When asked to describe the smell of something, we often use the words good or bad.  Trying to use a variety of words is hard and relies a lot on experience.  With help of a thesaurus we came up with more descriptive language.  Putting those words to use was harder when we were "out in the field."  





We then took something we all knew and analyzed it like never before- an apple.  Using all of our five senses, we came up with lists of adjectives.  Apples are round, red, smooth, hard, cool, squishy inside, gooey, sweet, delicious, juicy, fruity, and shiny.

These experiences with our 5 senses will come in handy when we start experimenting soon!