5 Senses in Spanish / Cinco Sentidos

Many language teachers try to create units based on what is being studied in their general education classrooms. I was delighted when a kindergarten teacher asked me to contribute to a science unit on the five senses. The students had a presentation on what they learned about the five senses. In that presentation the students recited a short poem I made up in Spanish.

The five senses in Spanish are as follows:
sight = vista
smell = olfato
hear = oido
touch/feel = tacto
taste = gusto

However, since I get to teach my students with little frequency, I decided to teach them words that would be be a little more practical:

see=veo
smell=huelo
hear=oigo
touch=toco
taste=gusto

The great thing about teaching these sets of words is that you can add any noun (that you can sense) after those words and create a sentence (i.e. Veo el gato.) All of the following activities should be modeled using these verbs as chunks to create sentences.

Books

I read my students the book Arriba Y Abajo/Up And Down by Angeles Jimenez Soria which does a nice job distinguishing verbs that go with the senses from the nouns names of the senses. 


Worksheets

This worksheet is a matching worksheet. I put this worksheet in a plastic sheet protector and had students use dry erase markers with a partner. One partner would call out one of the five senses and the other would draw a line from the picture/word to what you can sense with that sense (smell=flowers, hear =drum, etc.)

I also had students record with pictures or with words what they do with each of their 5 senses. 

Poem
Below is the poem my students finally recited on the day of their 5 senses presentation. The poem goes as follows:

Mis cino sentidos

Veo, veo
oh, ah (making binocular motion)

hueno, hueo,

Pee-eww (making stinky face)

gusto, gusto

uh, uh (making licking motion)

oigo, oiga,

la, la (listening with each ear)

toco, toco

(clap, clap)