Our senses are very essential for getting information about the surrounding world and for communicating with others. We have five senses which are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Losing just one of these senses makes our life very difficult and lowers the facility of communicating with those who are around us. Because Our senses are very important, we must teach our children and train them to use their senses to allow them to make full us of their senses when they grow up. The parents are the only ones to be responsible for doing that because they are closer to their children at that time than others.
Training your child to use his\her senses is not difficult as it does not require dedicating a specific period of time to show him\her how to use the five senses. All what you need for this task is some activities and making use of everything your child does to teach him\her the five senses. Here are some activities that will help you to know how to train your child to use the five senses.
♦ Books and songs: Reading books and stories is beneficial for teaching more than one sense and not just one. Your child can hear you while reading, can see the pictures and will also need to use the mind. You can also sing some songs for your child about senses.
♦ Playing games for taste: There are many games that can help your child to use the five senses. You can depend on what you already have at your home such as tasting different types of food and differentiating between their colors. Bring a number of bowls with different types of salty and sweet food and ask your child to try to taste, smell and name the food while closing his\her eyes. This shows your child the importance of different senses such as sight, touch, smell and taste.
♦ Touch: Ask your child to touch different materials or objects and this can be done through bringing a box and putting different items in it from your home such as scarves, jars, keys, pens, coins, rocks and other items with different sizes and textures, ask your child to close his\her eyes and to enter his\her hand in the box and get out something trying to guess what s\he touches and how it feels.
♦ Hearing: Go for a walk with your child at any place and while walking, you can talk with him\her about what s\he can see or hear around you. You can also use different musical instruments or any other objects that can make sounds at your home.
♦ Sight: Bring multiple shapes with different colors and ask your child to find the items with the same shape or the same color and put them together.
♦ Smell: You can use flowers with different scents or types of food with different smells and ask your child to describe the smell of the object while closing his\her eyes.
Notes: During playing and doing different activities, try to explain to your child the importance of each sense and why they are substantial for us to understand and get information about what is happening around us.
If your child is still not ready for using words to describe what s\he wants to say, you can help your him\her by using describing words and teaching them to him\her to allow him\her to use these words later.