Are you planning a five senses theme for your preschoolers? These hands-on sense of touch activities are an easy way to help children explore the sense of touch across different areas of the preschool curriculum.
You’ll find ideas for:
- Sensory play and exploration
- Process art and creative activities
- Literacy and language
- Rhymes & songs
Here are 16 simple sense of touch activities to add to your lesson plans, or to try at home with your preschooler.
Sensory Play & Exploration
Hands-on activities for exploring different textures and sensations.
1. Touch & Feel Box
Cut a hole in the side or top of a box, just large enough for a child’s hand to fit through.
Place several familiar objects inside without the children seeing them. Have them take turns reaching in, choosing an object and trying to identify it using only their sense of touch. They can then pull it out to see if they guessed correctly.
Encourage children to describe what they feel, using words such as soft, hard, smooth, rough, round or bumpy.
2. Texture Scavenger Hunt
Indoors or outside, challenge children to look for items with different types of textures: smooth, bumpy, sticky, cold, hot, rough, prickly, hard and soft.
The items can then be saved in a sensory bin indoors for future exploration with the sense of touch.
3. Mud Play
Indoors, mix water with soil to create mud in a plastic dishpan. Kids can experience the way it feels while squishing it through their fingers and use toy trucks and cars to drive on the “muddy roads” they have formed.
Outdoors, in proper clothing, kids could play in natural mud after a rainstorm, even going barefoot if the weather is warm!
4. Hot, Warm & Cold Water Exploration
Fill three bowls with cold, lukewarm and comfortably warm water. Let children feel each one and describe the temperature using words such as cold, cool, warm and warmer.
Add a few ice cubes to the warm water and feel how the temperature changes as they melt.
For another experiment, place one hand in cold water and the other in warm water, then put both into the lukewarm bowl. Does the water feel the same to both hands?
Talk about how our skin senses temperature and remind children never to touch very hot objects or water.
5. Slime or Playdough
Use slime or playdough (here are some easy playdough recipes) for this experience.
Children can manipulate the substances to enjoy the sensory input. They can also mould them into different shapes while enjoying the texture.
Getting children involved in helping you make and mix their own playdough is a great tactile experience too! They will need to mix it until it reaches the right consistency and add flour or water as needed.
6. Draw & Guess Game
Take turns being “drawers” and “guessers.”
One child draws a simple picture of an object on another child’s back. The second child then tries to guess the object by feeling the movements. Perhaps start with a shape or a letter of the alphabet.
For younger children, an adult can draw a basic image on their back.
Process Art & Creative Activities
Explore the sense of touch through painting, collage and other creative experiences.
7. Leaf Texture Rubbings
For this activity that combines science and art, gather leaves that have fallen on the ground.
Peel the paper from several crayons and show kids how to place a sheet of plain paper on top of the backs of leaves, then colour over those areas with the crayon held on its side.
As they colour, the children become more aware of the leaf textures appearing in their pictures.
Follow this touch-and-feel activity with a discussion about leaf veins and their purpose.
8. Fingers and Toes Painting
Using child-safe finger paint, children paint with their hands (or feet!) on finger-paint paper.
During this sensory play experience, ask kids what the paint feels like on their skin.
9. Touch & Feel Collage
Using the idea in the story from Lucy’s Picture (activity number 11 below), offer a variety of textured materials for children to glue onto a sturdy paper or poster board background.
They can add other details with markers and crayons if they wish.
10. Shaving Cream Art
Squirt aerosol shaving cream onto clean trays, tables or windows. Kids dive in with their fingers to experience how it feels on their hands, while spreading it around and drawing pictures in the foam.
Incorporate the senses of smell and sight by using scented shaving cream and adding safe paints or food colouring for rainbow hues.
Here are more shaving cream activities if you enjoy embracing the mess!
Literacy & Language Activities
Build vocabulary and language skills with these stories and games.
11. Lucy’s Picture
Share the picture book Lucy’s Picture by Nicola Moon.
In the story, a young girl makes a textured collage as a picture for her blind grandfather to “see” by touching with his hands.
12. Fabric Feelies Game
For this vocabulary game, paste various types of textured fabrics onto index cards. Try fabrics such as corduroy, velvet, felt, satin, wool, lace or fake fur.
The children touch the cards one at a time with their eyes closed. Challenge them to use descriptive words to describe the various textures, such as bumpy, smooth, silky, furry and soft.
Teach them what the fabrics are called.
13. Learn about Braille
Read a picture book about Louis Braille, such as Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant.
Share Braille children’s books borrowed from the library for the children to feel and explore.
Rhymes & Songs
Explore different touch sensations and concepts through songs, music and movement.
14. I Have 5 Senses (Touch) by Jack Hartmann
Play this song for the children and have them repeat the lines and do the actions along with the video.
There aren’t many songs specifically about the sense of touch, but the following two songs help children learn about touch alongside sight, hearing, smell and taste.
15. Five Senses by Little Smiley Kidoo
Teach children this simple rhyme, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
I have two eyes that can see.
I have one nose that can smell.
I have fingers that can touch,
They help me feel things pretty much.
I have two ears that can hear.
And one tongue that helps me taste.
These are all my five senses,
These are things I should not waste.
16. Five Senses by The Kiboomers
Children can listen to this fun song explaining each of the senses.
I hope you’ll enjoy trying these ‘sense of touch’ activities. Explore more senses with these ideas:
- Sense of hearing activities
- Sense of smell activities
- Sense of taste activities
- Sense of sight activities
Here is a full list of preschool themes to help plan your activities.