Naturally Sense-ational

Activity: Take a Hike!

Animals often have one or more senses that is particularly keen. Take a walk and use deer ears, eagle eyes, raccoon fingers, and your fox snout to discover new smells, sights, and sounds.

Activity: The Smelling Tray

The things on this tray are for smelling. Take several black film canisters or larger containers with lids (punch a pinhole in the lid if you like). Place smelly items, such as onions, flowers, pine needles, or an orange inside. You can put a drop of extract on a cotton ball and place it inside the film canister. Smell through the pinhole. Extracts are found with the spices at the grocery store or you can use essential oils found in craft stores and natural food stores. Can you guess what is inside the canister? Is the smell a thumbs up or a thumbs down smell?

Activity: The Seeing Tray

Use the binoculars on the tray to check out the view. It is hard for kids, and many adults, to find birds flying or hidden in trees. Make your target something general so success is almost guaranteed. Often children are fascinated by the change in size, but the fuzziness, if not binoculars are not focused, can turn them off. They may prefer their own binoculars with no lenses. Make your own toilet paper binoculars if you like. Use large targets when using binoculars. Can you find the leaves on the trees? How big are Daddy’s eyes when you look through binoculars? What happens to Mommy’s ear when you look through the other end of the binoculars?

Activity: The Listening Tray

Does a shell really have the ocean in it? Actually we hear the sounds of our own ear echoing through the shell. Birds make several different kinds of sounds for different reasons. They sing a song, they call, they may tap their beak on a tree, or they may vibrate their wings against their bodies. Each type of sound is for a reason, to establish territory, to find a make, to communicate with a family member.