Name the five senses

What it looks like when your child can do it

• — Asked how they know the soup is hot, your child says they can see the steam or feel the heat coming off the bowl.
• — Your child links each sense to its body part: eyes see, ears hear, skin feels, nose smells, tongue tastes.
• — Your child knows taste waits until a grown-up says something is safe to eat.

How to teach it at the kitchen table

1. 01

   Name each sense with its body part

   Touch each part as you say it: eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, hands and skin for touching, nose for smelling, tongue for tasting. Five parts, five senses.

2. 02

   Take one object through all five

   Hand your child an orange. What color and shape is it? What sound does it make when you tap it? How does the peel feel? How does it smell? Taste comes last, and only with your say-so.

3. 03

   Close one sense to notice the others

   Ask your child to close their eyes while you crinkle foil or tap a spoon on a glass. For smells, hold an open jar of cinnamon a hand's length away and show your child how to wave the air toward their nose. Wafting is the safe way to smell anything.

4. 04

   Ask which sense told you

   Through the day, when your child says something about the world, ask which sense brought that in. It is a small question that builds the habit the book leans on.

5. 05

   Tools help a sense look harder

   A ruler, a clock and a thermometer help your eyes. A number read off a tool still counts as an observation, and the book says so.

You will need: An orange or other fruit · A few kitchen things that make sounds or smells · Paper and a pencil

Try it together

1. Try 1

   Say: the wool blanket feels scratchy on my arm. Ask which sense brought that in.

   Listen for  Touch. Listen for skin, not only hands, since the arm did the feeling.

2. Try 2

   Say: a dog is barking down the road. Ask which sense.

   Listen for  Hearing. "Ears" is right too.

3. Try 3

   Say: the garbage can smells sour. Ask which sense.

   Listen for  Smell.

4. Try 4

   Say: the ruler shows the pencil is 15 centimeters long. Ask which sense.

   Listen for  Sight. The ruler is a tool, and your child reads it with their eyes.

5. Try 5

   Say: the dog is lonely. Ask which sense brought that in.

   Listen for  None of them. You might hear whining or see the dog waiting by the door, but lonely is something decided from those, not observed. This is the stretch question.

Watch for

• — Thinking touch lives only in the hands. Skin anywhere feels, like a cold floor under bare feet.
• — Sniffing straight from a bottle or jar. Some kitchen and cleaning smells are harmful up close, so the habit is to wave the smell toward the nose.

If it is not there yet

• — Play a guessing game with eyes closed, naming kitchen sounds or smells, and name the sense after each guess.
• — Trace your child's hand on paper and label each finger with one sense and its body part.

A few days of this is normal, and it is time well spent. The lesson will still be there, and it will go faster.

Where this skill comes up

• How Scientists Actually Find Out · Lesson 2

  What You Actually Saw

  Needs it because most lines on the sheet ask which sense brought that piece of information in, and one was read off a tool.