Five Senses in the Garden

Materials 

1. Flower garden, vegetable garden, or orchard
2. Construction paper, optional
3. Tape, optional

Instructions

1. Discuss with the children the five senses.
2. Take small groups of children to a garden.
3. Ask the children to stand very still and look carefully at the garden. After about a minute, encourage them to describe what they see using color words and descriptive vocabulary.
4. Ask the children to be very quiet and listen. After about a minute, ask them what they hear.
5. Invite the children to touch the leaves, flowers, and fruit and describe the various textures, such as smooth, rough, prickly, fuzzy, or sticky.
6. Encourage the children to smell the flowers and plants and describe which ones are sweet, sour, or funny smells.
7. Ask the children to pick a fruit or vegetable, supervising closely. After the children wash and taste their food, ask them to describe the taste (for example, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft, or squishy).

More to do:
Art: Ask the children to pick one leaf, flower, or vegetable. Back in the classroom, the children can tape it to a piece of construction paper that is labeled "smell," "touch," or "taste." Invite them to draw a picture of what they saw and heard in the garden.