The idea for the Sensory Safari came from this article in the Friend:
https://www.lds.org/friend/2016/07/happy-sabbath?lang=eng
We had a lesson, then one activity for each of our five senses. Because our activity time has been reduced to just 60 minutes (down from 90 minutes), and because we had 11 girls in attendance, we needed all our time-- and even a few minutes extra!
Lesson: Our spirits wanted a body, because bodies are AWESOME!
There are many things that a person with a body can do that a spirit cannot: we can eat, sleep, touch, smell, and so much more! Our spirits were VERY excited to be able to do these things. Our spirits knew a body would be a special gift; now that we are here on earth we need to appreciate and take good care of our body.
This is what the scriptures teach us about our body:
1 Corinthians 3:16
What do we learn from this verse? (Our body is a place for our spirit to live. Our body is a temple.)
Heavenly Father knew getting a body would be special to us. He created this world with many wonderful things that our bodies could experience. He gave us things to touch, taste, hear, see and smell that are beautiful!
There is a song that we sing about our beautiful world on page 228 (have 2 or 3 songbooks for the girls to share) in the Children’s Songbook.
What is the name of this song? (My Heavenly Father Loves Me)
Why do you think they chose this for the name?
Let’s read the words, and listen for the different kinds of things that Heavenly Father created to make the world beautiful to us. (Let the girls read the words aloud)
We know Heavenly Father created our bodies, and He wants us to both enjoy them and care for them. The prophet and other church leaders teach us to keep our bodies clean and pure. Look at the back of your FIG book, at the “My Gospel Standards”:
“I will keep my mind and body sacred and pure, and I will not partake of things that are harmful to me.”
What kinds of things might be harmful to our body? (Drugs, alcohol, tobacco)
It is also good to keep our bodies clean (physically, like with soap and water), to eat healthy foods, to exercise and get the sleep we need.
Tonight we want to focus on some of the amazing things our body can do! So we are going to take a sensory safari and explore all five sense: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste. As we do, let’s return grace and thanks to God as we experience all he has blessed us with!
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Sight: Close your eyes for a minute. Imagine experiencing your whole world without the gift of sight.
Without our eyes it would be very hard to read, to walk around without running into things, and even do simple things like pick the right cereal box!
Our eyes can see things far and near. They can pick out patterns and colors. They can even help us find things that are hidden. If you’ve ever seen an airplane far up in the sky, or looked closely at the beauty of a butterfly, or seen how interesting the texture of a piece of bread or block of marble is, you know your eyes are pretty amazing.
Your eyes convey a great deal of information to the brain, and even things that WANT to stay hidden can be detected by a careful observer if we look closely enough. Let’s test our eyes with this hidden picture!
Do a hidden picture page from the Friend. Have one copy, and one highlighter per girl http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/friend-september-2010/2010-09-18-we-love-family-home-evening-eng.pdf
Smell: Our sense of smell is so important! Not only is it great to smell nice things like flowers and cookies and fresh baked bread, our nose can warn us of danger! Like if we smell smoke, or a chemical smell. Maybe you have even smelled something stinky and thus have avoided stepping in dog poo!
See if you can identify these different smells.
Set up: Place the liquids as far apart as possible on the table (so the smells don’t collide); let the girls smell each container and try to identify the liquid inside by its scent.
I used clean baby food jars, and different clear liquids with distinct scents
I numbered each container, and had a numbered brown paper bag behind each bottle that contained the item: water bottle, vinegar bottle (water down the vinegar a bit!), mint bottle, soda bottles... it is a fun reveal at the end as you show what is inside the bag!
Give each girl a paper with the possible scents written down, and a pencil
Girls write the NUMBER by the word which identifies it (berry soda, 3; vinegar, 1, etc.)
I had the girls identify vinegar; water; berry flavored clear soda; pineapple coconut flavored clear soda; orange flavored clear soda; water w/ mint extract in it
Hearing: We can identify many different varieties of sound, soft sound, loud sounds, the beauty that is music. You can recognize a person by their voice, and everyone has a different voice! How amazing is that? If you spend a minute to listen, even in a quiet room, you can often hear small noises: a fly buzzing, or a fan running, or even the sound of your own breathing. Take a minute to just quietly listen for sounds in this room…
Our ears can tell us a lot if we use them, so let’s put them to the test and see if you can match up these different sounds!
Set up: Use a lidded, opaque container (such as old film canisters, m&m Minis tubes) and make pairs of tubes with matching interior objects such as: a teaspoon of rice (in 2 separate tubes), a teaspoon of salt, a few coins, a pencil eraser, etc.
Give one tube to each girl (making sure that each tube has a partner passed out— a leader may need to participate if you have an odd number of girls), and have them shake the tube. By listening to the different sounds, the girls should be able to find the matching tube (that contains the same interior object)
When the girls discover the matching tube have them sit down next to their partner. When everyone is seated, let each pair shake their tubes to show the matching sounds.
Touch: Our sense of touch can tell us about danger, like if something is hot or sharp. It can be pleasurable, such as when we receive a hug, or feel something soft and fuzzy. We can learn a lot about an object by touching it.
What can we tell about objects with our sense of touch? Let’s explore.
Set up: Have the girls sit in a circle with their eyes closed; pass around different objects;
without opening eyes, talk about what we can tell about each object…
Remind the girls to keep their eyes closed until they've had their turn. To facilitate passing, say “pass” after each girl has had a few seconds to explore the object.
Discuss: Even if we cannot see something, if we can touch it we know if it is:
Rough/smooth
light/heavy
wet/dry
hot/cold
We might also be able to tell the shape/size
What are some things you like to feel? Silk? a fluffy kitten? small pebbles? grass?
Pass around: a sticky toy, a large rock, playdough, a cotton ball, an ice cube
Taste: Our mouth and tongue do some wonderful things. We can appreciate all kinds of flavors and textures. Sweet, creamy ice cream or yogurt. Crunchy salty potato chips, or almonds, or cinnamon toast. Juicy fried chicken or a grilled hamburger. Cool, crisp watermelon or apples or pears. Ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies. Even sour lemons, and broccoli! Does anyone else want a picnic now??? :) If we had a picnic, what would you bring?
If there is time, let the girls share a favorite food.
Our eyes and our nose often help our sense of taste along. But even without our eyes, and without a strong smell, our sense of taste can give us a lot of information. Let’s see how smart YOUR sense of taste is!***
Set up: Give each girl a piece of paper with the different types of Cheerios listed on it. I had Fruity Cheerios, plain, Honey Nut, Chocolate, Apple Cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice.
Place a dixie cup in front of each girl. Pour the same type of Cheerios in each cup while the girls have their eyes closed. I gave each girl about a tablespoonful each time so they could get a good mouthful.
The girls pick up their cup, (eyes closed!) and pour all the Cheerios into their mouths. They can they open their eyes, assess the flavor and mark their card. They should place a number one by the flavor they think they tasted first, a two by the flavor they think they tasted second, and so on.
It's best for the girls to make a choice about the flavor before they go on to the next round of Cheerios. They can go back and adjust later if they want to.
*** Explain that eyes have to be closed because it is a TASTE test and seeing a dark brown cheerio... well you know that's the chocolate one with zero tasting. Obviously the girls COULD easily peek... but there isn't a prize for winning. This is just to test how good our mouth is at distinguishing flavors. Peeking will just wreck your chance to see that. So don't cheat!
Do all the rounds, and then go back and reveal the answers/have the girls check and see how well they did.
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And that's all five senses! The girls really enjoyed each game and had a lot of fun at this activity. Be sure to close with your testimony, and bring back the idea that we should thank Heavenly Father for the marvelous gift that is our body!
We can show our appreciation through prayers of thanks, but also through taking good care of our body, and treating it respectfully as the temple that it is.
We can show our appreciation through prayers of thanks, but also through taking good care of our body, and treating it respectfully as the temple that it is.
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