Objective of unit plan as a whole: The children will be able to identify the five senses and communicate the kind of information each sense provides.

This unit plan is made up of 7 lesson plans, therefore requiring 7 days of material.Any time of the day would be appropriate for teaching this unit plan.After establishing the time of day you would like to teach this unit plan, I would suggest sticking with that time for teaching the rest of the unit plan. This would allow the children to establish a pattern, knowing what to expect and look forward to.

The purpose of this unit plan is to introduce the children to their five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.The children will be introduced to the five senses through 7 days of different activities and experiments, exploring a new sense each day. The final assessment for this unit plan as a whole will be a matching test of the different organs: eyes, ears, nose, finger, and mouth with the sense it matches with: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. 

Each day of the unit plan, the students and the teacher will be working with different materials.To find out what the students and teacher will need each day, refer to each of the 7 lesson plans under the heading “special materials.”To find out the Integration possibilities for each lesson of this unit plan look under each of the 7 lesson plans under the heading “Integration Possibility.”

Resources Used:

Ackerman, D. (1978).A Natural History of the Senses.

New York: Random House.

Crews, D. (1978).Colors.Freight Train, New York:

Scholastic, Inc.

Stan & Jan. (1985).The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk 

Food.New York: Random House.

Tolman, M.N. & Morton, J. O. (1986).Life Science Activities 

For Grades 2-8.New York: Parker publishing Co., Inc.

Turner, N. (1978).Popcorn Song.New York:

McGraw-Hill.

Utah State Office of Education. (1996, Nov 15).Lesson plans 

on the five senses.The Five Senses.Retrieved March 12, 

2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.uen.org

 Lesson 1: Introduction to The Five Senses - The Adventurous Barefoot Nature Walk

Grade level: first grade                    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 1hr. to 1hr. 30 min.

Measurable Objective: Through the use of 3 different centers: art, writing, and mathematics, the students will be able to state why we need our five senses and what we can do with our five senses.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: word tags saying see, hear, feel, taste, smell; laminated pictures/diagrams of the ear, eye, nose, tongue, finger (to show feeling)
For the Student: no materials needed

Introduction to Content:
Tell the students they will begin a new unit by going outside to take a little, barefoot walking trip.  Ask them to talk to each other about their experiences on the trip to help them remember everything they can about the trip.  Students go on a walk for at least 15 minutes.  Ask questions during the trip.
 Once the class returns to the classroom, have the students brainstorm by describing what they experienced, describing their trip.  If the students do not mention each of the five senses, ask questions, such as: Did you smell something?  What did you hear? See?  What did you feel?  When you smelled the cafeteria food, could you taste it?  Did you see a dog (some other animal)?  How did you know it was a dog?  Did you see the mountains?  How far are they?  What color is the sky?  Did you see any cars?  What were they doing?  What parts of your bodies did you use to get all this information?  Discuss how they learn from seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting.
 While the children are answering these questions, the teacher will develop a word bank using the word tags: see, hear, feel, taste, and smell with the children’s answers or responses.  Tell the students that at different learning centers they will complete many different activities that will help them learn more about how humans learn.

Center 1: At the art center students cut out picture from magazines that show people using the five senses.
Center 2: At the writing center students complete frame sentences: “I see_____________ with my eyes, I hear_____________ with my ears,” etc. Students supply the words.
Center 3: At the mathematics center students sort objects by color, size, shape, smell, and how they feel (texture)

 Students use laminated pictures of the body organs that represent the five senses to show that the number five has other names, such as two plus three and one plus four.  Using the pictures to group, the students show that one row of five red cubes matches a row of four white and one yellow, three brown and two black etc.

1. After the students complete their activities, ask them to review their experiences on their walk.  What did they learn about the world on their trip?   What did they use to learn on their trip?  What is in the world besides people?  How do you know?  What kinds of sounds are there?  How do you know?  What is important about our senses?  We learn about the world.
2. Read the book My Five Senses by Aliki to the students.  Discuss the book.  The students show the class the pictures they cut out of the magazines at the art center and why they chose those pictures.  How were the people using their senses?
3. Collect student work for a class Big Book.
4. The students show the other members of the class how they sorted the objects in the mathematics center and explain why they chose those categories.  How many categories did they form?  How many objects did they put into each category?  Did they put some objects into more than one category?  Which ones?  Why?

Assessment and Evaluation:
Oral Assessment
1. Why do we need our five senses?
2. What can we do with our senses?
3. Tell me two other names for the number five.
Performance Assessment
1. Assess the students’ performance on the sorting task at the mathematics center.
2. Assess the students’ performance on the writing task at the writing center.
3. The students, using cubes, show two other names for the number five.

Lesson 2: The Five Senses - Seeing is Believing

Grade level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Measurable Objective: Through the identification of an object and the use of a color experiment, the student will be able to describe the color of an object and be able to conclude that one must see an object to know its color.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: blindfold or pillow case to hold an object, objects students can identify by touch with a distinct shape, size, texture, such as an apple, an eraser, or a small doll.
For the Student: (groups of four) 4 cotton swabs, 1 egg carton, 4pieces of drawing paper, 1 container of red, yellow, and blue paint, 3 plastic spoons

Content Review or New:
 Review the barefoot walking trip the students took the first day.  Ask the students what they remember seeing.  Then introduce the following new material: The sense of sight helps us learn how things appear.  We can discover and compare objects by seeing their color, shape, and size with our eyes.  Our eyes are able to measure objects and tell us whether they are close or far, tall or short, and their color.  Color can only be perceived using the sense of sight.  Color is a vital part of our lives and provides a fun way to explore the sense of sight by mixing colors and observing how color changes.

Activities:
Step 1: Let the students, one at a time, feel something and identify it by touch only.  They can describe shape, size, and texture.  Ask them to describe the color.  Let them conclude that they must see the object to know its color.  Identify the eyes as the organ of sight.

Step 2: Instruct students to place one spoon of red, yellow, and blue paint in each of the three separate holes in the egg carton.  Instruct each student to experiment by taking an additional spoonful of red paint and one spoonful of yellow paint and putting them into the same hole in the egg carton.  Use a spoon or cotton swab to mix the colors together.  Observe the change.

Step 3: Repeat this procedure to mix blue/yellow, blue/red, and blue/yellow/red.

Step 4: Hand out sheets of drawing paper and instruct students to choose a color and write their name on the paper using a cotton swab.  Have students make a picture on the paper using any combination of colors they choose.  Observe color changes as they paint.

Assessment or Evaluation:
 While each child is making a picture on their drawing paper have them identify the observable color changes made, identifying at least 2 color changes.  Make a chart of all of the kids in the classroom.  Make a smiley face or frown face to identify if the student understood or did not.

Possible Integration:
1. Allow 15 seconds for students to look around at the clothing their classmates are wearing.  With eyes closed, ask students to estimate how many classmates are wearing something red today.  Repeat with each color.  Graph the estimations.  Repeat the procedure, but take time to count the responses and graph the results.  Compare estimations with actual results.  This allows the integration of a math lesson.

Lesson 3: The Five Senses - The Wonders of Hearing

Grade Level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 1 hour

Measurable Objective: After completing the listening activities, the student will be able to identify the organ used to hear sound by pointing to it and be able to identify a sound that is played.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: rubber band
For the Student: (put in groups of 2-4) an additional rubber band (varying in sizes) playing card with a hole in the center, a playing card with a hole in the center, an unsharpened pencil with an eraser, 2 emery boards, a strip of newspaper, a plastic comb, a 4” by 6” piece of wax paper

Content Review and New:
Review the sounds the children heard from the barefoot field trip.  Ask the children what body part allows them to hear different sounds.  Tell the children they will be taking part in experiments to learn how their ears allow them to hear something.

Activities:
Step 1: Instruct students to close their eyes.  Make a series of sounds for the students to identify.  Examples could include piano playing, whistling, singing, shouting, clapping hands, snapping fingers, etc.  For ease of use, consider recording these sounds on a cassette tape or CD.

Step 2: Have students identify the sounds and identify the ear as the organ of hearing once again.  Help students generate a list of words used to describe different sounds.  Sound words might include: loud, soft, ringing, sliding, whistling, rattling, buzzing, humming, clanging, banging, scratching, pounding, tapping, honking, beeping, crunching, crackling, fizzing, snapping, grinding, tearing, slurping, slamming, yelling, clapping, shrill, laughing, yelping etc.

Step 3: Tell the student that sound is made by vibrations hitting the eardrum inside the ear.  Demonstrate “vibration” by stretching a rubber band across your fingers and plucking it so students can see the rubber band move back and forth as they hear the sound.

Step 4: Give each pair of students a rubber band and allow one student to hold the rubber band while the other student plucks it to produce sound.  Varying the sizes of the rubber bands will allow students to compare the sound produced.  Challenge students to try to hum the sound they hear.

Step 5: Individually or in small groups, have the students arrange the materials on the table in front of them.  Instruct them to look, but not to touch the objects until directed to do so.  Hold up each object, one at a time, and ask the students to predict which objects can make sounds.  Record and graph predictions and which cannot.

Step 6: Hold up the pencil and ask for the hands of students who think it can make a sound.  Have the students pick up their pencils and demonstrate.  Students can experiment with sounds by tapping pencils on the desk, floor, chair leg etc.  Have them repeat with the eraser end and the unsharpened end.

Step 7: Repeat the procedure with each object.  Rub and tap emery boards; tap, snap, and blow through the hole in the playing card; wave and tear the newspaper; tap and flip the plastic spoon; tap the comb and feel the vibrations as students move the teeth of the comb against the table.

Step 8: Introduce “system” (putting two or more things together to work together) by showing students how to make a sound system by folding the wax paper over the teeth of the comb.  (An alternate system can be made by placing the piece of wax paper over the end of a cardboard tube and fastening it in place with a rubber band.  Punch a hole in the cardboard tube about five centimeters from the wax paper with a pencil.)

Step 9: have students make a humming sound by putting their lips together.  Hum a tune such as “Old McDonald.”  Have them put their fingers to their throat while humming and feel the vibration of sound.

Step 10: Demonstrate holding the comb-harmonica system loosely between the lips and have students hum a song on their comb-harmonica.  Have students experiment by humming hard.  (If students are unable to produce sound with the comb-harmonica, try humming into the cardboard tube-kazoo.)

Step 11: Have students pick their favorite object from the materials in front of them and hold it in the air.  Set a beat and have them join in to make music with their objects.

Possible Integrations:
1. Make a list of ten things that make a soft sound and ten things that make a loud sound.
2. Make musical glasses by finding six glasses that are exactly alike and filling them with different amounts of water.  Ask students to predict what will happen if they tap the glasses with a pencil.  Will they make a sound?  Will all of the glasses produce the same sound?  Graph predictions and compare with results.  Arrange glasses in order from the least water to the most and discuss pitch – from high to low.
 
 
 
 

Lesson 4: The Five Senses- Smelly Smells

Grade level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 45 min.- 1hr.

Measurable Objective: The student will identify which organ they use to smell, they will also be able to give an example of a good smell and a bad smell through the activity they complete.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: none
For the Students: (arrange in groups of two), 5 film canisters or plastic portion cups (1 or 2oz.) with lids labeled A, B, C, D, E, 5 scented cotton balls, one placed in each container scented with lemon juice, rose, jasmine, pine, perfume, mint, maple extract, cinnamon (Extracts and oils for candy-making can be purchased from a grocery store.  Scents like rose, pine, and jasmine can be purchased as candle-making scents from a craft store.)

Content Review and New:
There are many different kinds of smells.  Some things smell good to almost everyone, while other smells may be liked by some and disliked by others.  Students do not agree about which scents they like, but should realized that others may have a different preference.  Some things can hurt the nose because they have a strong smell.  Teach students to use the ‘safety sniff’ when smelling something unfamiliar and using the nose to explore.  ‘Safety sniff’ means to open the container, wave your hand over the opening and move it toward your nose.  Remind students to always close one container before opening another one and remember to put the same lid back on the container.  When you put water on your nostrils, the scent is stronger.

Activities:
Step 1: In a large group, open a bottle of perfume or other smell substances.  Seat students at various locations around the room and instruct them to stand when they smell the perfume.  Pre-assess knowledge by asking students to explain what is happening and why.

Step 2: Encourage students to share what they know about smell by asking questions like: What part of your body helps you smell?  What can you tell about an object by smelling it?  What kinds of things are you able to smell?  What is your favorite smell?  How can your nose warn us of danger?
Step 3: At tables or desks, give each pair of students five containers with a cotton ball inside for each scent.  Instruct students to take turns opening one container at a time.  Use the “safety sniff” to smell the scent, then tell your partner something about the smell.  Have each student decide whether they like or don’t like each smell and categorize accordingly.

Step 4: Give the noses a five-minute break, making sure all containers are closed.  This may be a good time to have students suggest smells they find pleasant.  List on the board.  What do these smells bring to mind?

Step 5: Instruct students to find the container that smells like perfume.  They can test to see if they have the correct container by asking a partner to smell it.  Set that container aside.

Step 6: Repeat by naming the other scents while partners take turns finding that scent.

Step 7: Have students put a little bit of water on their nostrils and smell each scent again and talk about the perceived difference with their partner.

Step 8: Ask students to choose the container of their favorite scent and put the lids on the other containers.  Partners may pick the same containers that go together, or they can each choose a different scent.  Instruct students to take the open container and walk around the room finding the containers with the same scent.

Step 9: Allow students to set up territories in the room for each scent and group themselves according to their scent.

Step 10: Draw conclusions about which group has more and less members by counting and/or recording on a graph.  Include all groups.

Possible Integrations:
1. Relate favorite smells with different seasons as a way of introducing the different seasons to the class, for example, a swimming pool, air after rain, campfire.  A book to use with this integration would be “What is Your Favorite Smell” by Gibson, M.T.

Lesson 5: The Five Senses – Terrific Tastes

Grade level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 1 hour

Measurable Objective: The student will be able to state what organ is used to taste, also when give an item of food, they will be able to describe the taste: bitter, sweet, sour, or salty.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: pipettes, medicine, droppers, or cotton swabs (one for each student in each solution), solutions of sugar water, salt water, and lemon juice
For the Student: (individual) a paper plate, Sweet: cookie and sugar cube, Salty: pretzel and potato chip, Sour: lemon and dill pickle, Bitter: unsweetened chocolate and a grapefruit rind (other foods may be substituted as long as they fall distinctly into sweet, sour, salty, and bitter categories)

Content Review and New:
 Students may know how foods taste, but may not be able to name the four tastes as sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.  It is not necessary, but may be interesting for them to learn that different tastes are generally sensed by different parts of the tongue.  What we eat or drink must pass over the tongue to be tasted.  You may choose to vary this activity by having students work as partners with the “taster” blindfolded and the partner supplying the sample to taste so students do not anticipate the taste of the food simply by looking at it.  This lesson provides a good time to teach some basic “lab safety” procedures.  Students need to know that this lesson is an exception to an important rule: While we may use other senses, never taste an unknown substance when experimenting in science, at home, or at play.

Activities:
Step 1: Give each student a small taste (few drops) of dilutions of salt water, sugar water, and lemon juice by dripping it on their tongue.  Help them identify the taste as sweet, salty, or sour.  Identify the tongue as the organ of taste.

Step 2: Have the students organize the food items on their plate and ask them to pick up the piece they want to taste first.  Introduce the four kinds of taste – sweet, sour salty, or bitter – and ask students to predict how the piece they selected will taste.  Record predictions.

Step 3: Introduce “nibble” as a way to encourage students to experiment carefully with taste rather than just eating.  You may want to have students practice this on a pretzel.  Identify the taste as sweet, sour, salty, or bitter.

Step 4: Predict which other food item would have the same kind of taste.

Step 5: Repeat the procedure and arrange the pieces tested around the outside of the plate matching foods of similar taste together.

Step 6: Graph the foods or tastes considered to be the most and least favorite.

Step 7: Keep a record for one day of all the foods eaten by members of the class.  Instruct students to think about the ways they could describe the taste of the things they eat.  Categorize foods listed as sweet, sour, salty, or bitter to determine what kinds of foods are eaten most by students.

Step 8: Construct a chart with the four taste categories across the top of four columns.  Have students categorize pictures or names of foods in the appropriate column.  Give students time to use resources from home to add additional pictures or names of foods to each category.

Possible Integrations:
1. Have the students gather around the teacher and read them  “The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food” by Stan and Jan.  In this book, mama bear starts a campaign to convince her family that they are eating too much junk food.  This book could be incorporated into the food pyramid with a nutrition lesson, teaching the children how to eat right.

Lesson 6: The Five Senses – Touch and Feel

Grade level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 1 hour

Measurable objective: The student will be able to state that they feel something with their skin, not just their fingers after completing the “feel” bag activity.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: interesting objects students will want to touch placed inside a small bag
For the Student: (individual or groups of 2) small paper bag, collection of objects such as fur, sandpaper, small inflated balloon, shell, cotton ball, plastic fork, small square of poster board, small stone, corrugated cardboard

Content Review and New:
 This activity will challenge students to identify objects using only their sense of touch.  It will be necessary to blindfold the student or hide the objects inside a sack, pillowcase, or box when introducing students to the sense of touch so that the sense of sight is not combining with the sense of touch to identify texture, size, shape, etc.  Students often have a limited vocabulary to describe how things feel.  This activity gives students and opportunity to identify and use many words associated with the sense of touch with examples of what the words mean.

Activities:
Step 1: Show the students a closed paper bag with an object inside.  Allow students time to ask questions to obtain information about what is in the bag.  Ask how they could get more information without looking in the bag.  When someone suggests they could feel the object, direct the discussion to the organ of the body we use to feel.  Be sure students conclude that they feel with their skin, not just their fingers.

Step 2: Select a student to feel the object in the bag.  Ask questions which will lead the student to give key information such as size, shape, and texture, without revealing the identity of the object.  Allow the student to show the object and tell what information was gained using the sense of touch to identify the object.  Pass the object around the group so all students can feel the object.  Tell students they will experiment with different objects to see what they feel like and to name the words we use to describe how something feels.

Step 3: In small groups, have students open their individual paper “feel” bags and remove one object at a time.  Experiment by touching each object to their arms, chins, cheeks, noses, etc.  to help students use words to describe how objects feel, such as soft, hard, rough, smooth, bumpy, sharp or dull.

Step 4: Instruct the students to return the objects to the bags.  Then have them reach into the bag without looking, identify the object, and name the word that describes how it feels using only the sense of touch.  Students may work in pairs and share their answers with a partner.

Step 5: Construct a class list of as many “feeling” words as students can find.  Extend the activity to allow students to use resources from home (ex. parents, siblings, and resource books) to identify as many words as possible.  As a new word is added to the list, suggest that the student pantomime or select an object to demonstrate the new word.  Examples: hard, dry, rough, sticky, furry, gritty, thorny, heavy, spongy, hot, bumpy, oily, flabby, stretchy, smooth, hairy, cold, lumpy, prickly, fluffy, soft, dusty, lukewarm, bristly, limp, fuzzy, slick, solid, stiff, coarse, gooey, slimy, cuddly, wet, silky, woolly, greasy, squishy, cool

Possible Integration:
1. Construct a “touch and match” game by gluing or stapling two matching squares of fabrics with different textures to small squares of poster board.  Blindfold students and instruct them to match the fabric squares that feel the same.  Include other textures such as sandpaper, cotton balls, etc.   Once the children have matched the fabric squares have them count how many they were able to get right, then have them count how many they got wrong.  Then have the children make a math problem out of their results for example, 5 right – 2 wrong = 3 etc.
 

Lesson 7: The Five Senses: Pop, Pop, Popping

Grade level: first grade    Subject: Health/Science
Time required: 45 minutes

Measurable Objective: The student will be able to state to the teacher how they used their five senses and what organ is used with each sense in the popcorn activity and also complete the final assessment: the matching test.

Special Materials:
For the Teacher: popcorn popper, oil, if needed, popcorn kernels, salt, cups, napkins, or small sacks for the popcorn
For the Student: nothing needed

Activities:
Step 1: Pass a container of popcorn kernels around and allow the students to make observations: How do the kernels feel? Do the kernels have an odor? Describe their appearance.  Include which sense students are using to make observations.  Identify taste and hearing, as the two senses not yet used.

Step 2: Ask students to suggest ways to include the senses of hearing and taste.  Someone is sure to suggest that you pop the popcorn!  As the popcorn is popped, ask which sense is being used which was not used in observing the popcorn kernels.  Identify the sense of hearing.  Do students detect an odor now?  Identify the sense used.

Step 3: As the popcorn pops, ask students to describe the change in the appearance of the popcorn.  Salt the popcorn.  Ask which sense has not been used yet.

Step 4: Taste the popcorn and ask students to describe how it tastes.  Have students name each sense used for this activity and explain how each sense was used.

Step 5: Sing the Popcorn Song by Nancy Byrd Turner: Pop-pop-pop, said the popcorn in the pan, Pop-pop-pop, you can catch me if you can.  Pop pop pop, said the kernel white and yellow.  Pop pop pop, I’m a happy, dancing fellow.  Pop-pop-pop, I can dance and skip and hop.   Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

Final Evaluation or Assessment:
 The students will complete a matching test.  The test will include pictures of all the five sense organs, nose, eyes, mouth, finger, and ears and the five senses in words: smell, see, taste, feel, and hear.  The children must match the organ that belongs with each sense.

Integration Possibility:
1. To tie in a Spanish lesson using the five senses, draw a face (cara).  On the face, draw a nose (nariz), a mouth (boca), ears (orejas), eyes (ojos), and draw a finger.  Teach the children the spanish version of the nose, mouth, ears, eyes, and finger reiterating that these are the organs used for the five senses.  You could also use Mr. Potatoe Head to show the different organs, showing the Spanish version of each organ.