Have you ever blind folded your child and let them guess food by using only their taste buds?
Children really enjoy letting a different sense take over. It’s a new experience and a new opportunity to learn. In this game, your child will guess the food using taste and smell as a sense and then guess what animal might eat that food.
Animal sensory Activity
What you need:
- Blind fold (we used a tea towel)
- Pictures of animals (see below). I used images from the internet, printed them and cut them out.
- Food that is well recognised as a source of food to an animal. We used:
|
Animal |
Food |
|
Bear |
Honey |
|
Rabbit |
Carrot |
|
Koala |
Eucalyptus Lolly |
| Mouse |
Cheese |
| Parrot |
Sunflower Seeds |
| Monkey |
Banana |
Another alternative may be a squirrel and nuts for their food source.
How to play the animal sensory activity game
1. Have the food prepared on a plate for your child (without them seeing you doing it)
2. Blind fold your child
3. Pass the food to your child and let them taste it. Ask your child what food it is and what animal might eat that food. If they don’t know the answer to the questions move on to the next food.
4. Once all the food has been tasted and the child has tried to answer all the questions, take the blind fold off.
5. Give your child the pictures and ask them to place the pictures of the animals next to the food that the animal eats.
My eldest loved this activity! She found the eucalyptus drop and sunflower seeds difficult to guess, but once she had the pictures of the animals, she used process of elimination to help her guess which animal linked with which food.
She was very happy to eat the remainder of the plate for afternoon tea!
Follow on ideas:
- Find out if animals have taste buds
- Learn about taste buds and what their purpose is
- Ask your child if an animal would eat their food straight away or if there’s something they would do before eating it.
- Learn more about animal tongues
- Learn more about the other senses animals use
This is great! We will have to try this sometime; I’m definitely pinning! I would love for you to come share with Mom’s Library this Wednesday!
http://www.lifewithmoorebabies.blogspot.com
Hi Ashley, I work on Wednesdays but I’ll try to remember to pop by 🙂
No problem! It goes live Tuesday evenings around 7 CST, and will be live for a few days. I hope to see you there, and keep up the good work! 🙂
This game is always fun. Such lovely ideas to make it animal related!
Thank you. I couldn’t help but make it animal relates :p
ohhh what a very cool idea….
I dont know if my little man would keep the blind fold on lol
Perhaps when he’s a little older?
What a fun idea and I love that it is a matching game as well as taste test! I’ve never tried a eucalyptus drop!
They are yummy. I’ve never tasted a eucalyptus leaf before but the drops smell exactly the same. I think it has much more sugar than the leaf though. 🙂
What a fun way to explore what animals eat! I remember doing a similar activity when I was in kindy and it has always left a really good impression on me 🙂
Naw that’s nice to know Kelly. There’s nothing like going back in time to fond memory!
So clever Pen! I thought the eucapltus lolly was a touch of genius too. I’m not sure a leaf would go down too well!
He he , I couldn’t help adding a koala activity in there could I? I’m hopeless :p
ooh so much fun!!
How clever are you…gosh i love the way you incorporate wildlife activities…such fun Penny!!
I can’t help it Jode. I think it’s in my nature. I just love that it took me no time to set up. I love the on a whim activities like this!
Great idea Penny. My children love the blindfold taste test game but to incorporate animals into it is something that we must do next time.
Just an added extra to the taste game. I really should have included the twins in this game too but they are still quite young for it. It won’t be long now, they are growing up so fast. Sniff sniff.
Brilliant. You never cease to amaze me with your ideas. I particularly love this one for the ease of setting up.
I love that this is so sensory!
This is a fun extension to test tasting. I love the little lolly 🙂 My kids love little smelling jars too. Now I wonder how you could incorporate some wildlife into that one??? Hmmmm…. I sure you could think of something 🙂