As a child's first teacher, a parent has many important concepts to teach including how to use the five senses to learn about the world. The sense of touch Children can become more familiar with their sense of touch by playing with materials like homemade or store bought modeling dough, clay, water, sand, uncooked rice and gelatin. One game that parents can play is to take an empty pillowcase and place familiar objects inside. Let children, one at a time, try to guess what the objects are.
Parents can help children describe how each object feels.
The sense of sight Parents can help children focus on their sense of sight by placing four or five familiar objects on a tray. Give children one minute to look at all of the items and then cover the tray and ask the children to share what they saw on the tray. As children get used to this game, they will begin to focus more on the objects so that they are able to share when the tray is covered again. The sense of taste Children can learn to identify foods by taste with this activity. After they taste a food, have them guess what they tasted.