Five Senses Lapbook for Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Kindergarten
This is a fun Five Senses lapbook designed to introduce your early learners to each of their five senses through hands-on activities and lapbook printables.
Teach your preschool students about the senses of touch, sight, smell, hearing, and taste with the with multi-sensory activities and booklets in this 5 Senses Lapbook learning folder.
Your toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners will learn about each of their five senses through the different hands-on activities, and then they will use each of their five senses to create the mini books to include in their 5 Senses lapbook.
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Resources for your Five Senses Lapbook:
Required Resources
My Five Senses (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1) by Aliki
The Listening Walk by Paul Showers and Aliki
Small scrap size pieces of some materials (just whatever you can find around the house–or from a friends craft closet—in a variety of textures). For example:
- burlap
- satin, minky, or silky material
- rough sandpaper
- felt or fleece
- faux fur
- a few craft feathers or part of a feather boa
- crinkled piece of plastic packaging–like from a cereal or cracker box liner
- one of those sticky plastic toys that you throw at the wall and it sticks
Other items needed: small piece of aluminum foil, flour and oil to make play-dough, glue sticks, essential oils or flavoring extracts (like peppermint or vanilla) or a spritz of perfume, printer paper, scissors, pencils and crayons, a file folder, a slice of lemon (or lemon juice), a salty hard pretzel, a piece of candy, and a teaspoon of plain cocoa powder (like you use to make brownies from scratch).
5 Senses Lapbook Printables (scroll down)
Optional, but Recommended Resources
Me and My Senses by Joan Sweeney OOP, but you can easily find used copies Also available on OpenLibrary.
You can’t smell a flower with your ear: All about your 5 senses by Joanna Cole
The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses by Joanna Cole Also on Hoopla
Just for fun: Scratch and Sniff stickers
Not sure what a lapbook is? Find out here.Â
Multi-Sensory Activities to Learn the Five Senses
Hands-on Activities
It’s a good idea to complete the hands-on activities before filling out and creating the lapbook. That way your preschooler has some real-life experiences to help them answer the questions in the lapbook.
Hearing
Read The Listening Walk book. Go outside at different times of the day. Listen to the sounds. Notice what sounds are heard all day long and what sounds are unique to different times of the day. This is especially noticeable in the spring and summer if you walk around a pond where the frogs and bugs sing in the evenings.
If you have a piano or other instrument, play some high notes and low notes and let your kids guess if it’s high or low.
Your kids will also enjoy guessing the sounds they hear in these Guess the Sound games videos: Easy with visual clues and without visual clues
Play a listening game. My kids like the Cranium “Sounds of the Seashore” game that we got at a garage sale–it’s sadly no longer in print, but you might find a used copy somewhere.
Or you can easily make a fun matching sounds game with some leftover plastic Easter eggs and random items using these directions.
Or you can play Simon Says or Guess Who? Jr. to work on listening for specific words and directions.
Taste
Give your children a variety of flavors and see if they can “name” the taste. For example, can they label salted, roasted nuts as salty; or a pickle as sour; or a bite of a strawberry as sweet?
Visit the produce section of a large grocery story. If you are near an Asian grocery store, those often have more unusual fruits and veggies like dragon fruit or bok choy cabbage that your kids may not be familiar with. Choose some fruits or vegetables you have never tried before to purchase and eat.
Play Bean Boozled jelly bean game Note: if your kids are like my youngest and “love” all flavors because they don’t seem to taste anything, this game won’t work. LOL
Touch
We also use our sense of touch to identify things we can’t see. A fun way to explore our ability to do this is to play a Name It game. Gather up a variety of different shaped objects (without your kids seeing what they are beforehand). Then place the items into a large bag (a drawstring bag works really well for this, if you have one). Let them reach in and grab an item, but leave it in the bag. Let them try to guess what it is before they pull it out to see if they were correct.
If you don’t have time to gather items, there’s a fun game called What’s in Ned’s Head? that is basically the same thing (only many of the things in his head are gross/sticky/slimy) and I guarantee your kids (boys especially) will think it’s hilarious!
Create a texture sensory tub. Use one of the ideas here. Or, if you aren’t convinced that sensory bins are worth the mess that they create, read this article about the many developmental and educational benefits that outweigh the messiness.
Smell
Talk to your child about things that we can smell and discuss if they are good smells or bad smells. Ask them to name some things that they like the smell of, and some that they don’t like.
Let them play with a scented play-doh: add an essential oil or a flavoring extract to homemade play-doh. My kids really like peppermint extract in white play-dough and Eden’s Garden Sunshine and Spice in a yellow play-dough.
Have your kids hold their nose while they are eating. Can they still “taste” their food as well without smelling it? What does that tell them about taste and smell?
Sight
Play a memory matching game and use your eyes to find the matching pictures. Use the one included in this pack (print 2 copies on card stock), make your own, or play a visual finding game like Spot It 1 2 3 or this Eric Carle Matching game
If this is your first time completing a lapbook, read this first to learn how to fold your folders to create the lapbook base.
Read the My Five Senses book, and then watch this Jack Hartmann, I’ve Got 5 Senses song video and this classic Barney Five Senses song
5 Senses Books
Includes a mini-book for each of the 5 senses. First, cut out all of the objects to sort. After you sort them by sense, you can glue the pictures you can hear, see, smell, taste, or touch into each mini book. (Answers included in the printables).
Texture Book
Either trace around the hand of your child or use the included hand shapes. Cut out several copies of the hand. Glue items with different textures on each hand. You could use sandpaper, different fabrics, cotton balls, leaves, etc. Have the child come up with their own ideas to add also!
Taste Book
Taste the four different items listed and determine if they are sour, sweet, bitter or salty. Then record your finding in the mini book:
- a lemon slice, or lemon juice
- a salted pretzel
- a piece of sweet, chewy candy like a tootsie roll, not a sour candy
- and a teaspoon of plain cocoa powder (not chocolate milk powder or hot cocoa mix, just plain cocoa powder without any sugar or sweetener)
Hearing Book
Watch this Sesame Street Quiet or Loud Song video. Then complete the Quiet and Loud Sounds Flap fold book. Cut out the items and sort them into quiet and loud sounds.
I See Book
Make a mirror book using this shutter book and aluminum foil.
I Smell…Pocket
Make scented papers to put in the I Smell pocket. You could use perfume, essential oils, or food extract flavoring–use your imagination!
I Use My Senses Book
Fold in a fan fold. Cut out the 3 pictures and glue one to each section. Figure out all of the senses you use to experience a dog, an ice cream cone, and a flower and write those senses next to each picture.
Get your 5 Senses Lapbook in our HHO Shop
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