Five Senses Art Activities for Preschoolers

Color Study of “How Fruit Smells

Sense Engaged: SMELL

Is there anything more delightful than the smell of fresh fruit? Treat your creative spirits by setting up a bowl of cut fruit on the table. Choose something smelly like watermelon or pineapple. Have your artist close their eyes, be silent, and breathe deeply. Then ask them, with their eyes closed, what color they are “smelling”. For the more literal minded skeptics remind them that this is a fun experiment and there are no right or wrong answer. Give them a big old dollop of the color they ask for along with a piece of paper and have them do a finger painting of how the fruit smells! Level up by giving them an extra color to mix with. After art is over, it’s snack time!

Sculpture “guess the object” myster

Sense Engaged: TOUCH

Split students into two groups and put a divider between them so they can’t see each other’s artwork. Using Crayola Model Magic or playdough, have students each make a sculpture of a familiar object (like a cup, a hotdog, a heart). Place each sculpture into a cardboard box or paper bag (not plastic or they won’t dry) and label them with the student’s name and table number. The next day, the sculptures will be dry. Have students stick their hands into the bags of the other table and try to guess what they are! Avoid frustrations by encouraging laughter and humor with wild, goofy guesses.

Edible Artwork

Sense Engaged: TASTE

Set out art stations with rice paper or tortillas and food that you can make marks with, like blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, or even dark fruit juices. Let the kids have a painting session, and then eat their creations! Make sure to use new brushes or maybe even a new toothbrush. Ask them to shout out what their artwork tastes like. Add some yummy proteins like cheese or hummus to make your creative snack complete.

Eco Art Show

Sense Engaged: TOUCH

Eco art is one of my favorite ways of making artwork with kids! Bring them out to the garden and encourage the kids to gather natural materials like rocks, sticks, leaves, etc. Give each kid a space on the ground and ask them to make a pattern. Then, have the kids walk around to talk about their creations, specifically what the materials felt like in their hands and sounded like when they were being manipulated. Show them examples of eco art for inspiration!

Make Art to Musi

Sense Engaged: HEARING

Set up four stations with different colored art materials on each (a blue table, a red table, etc). Then select four short songs and give each child four pieces of paper. As you play each song, have the children walk to the table with the colors that the song is inspiring. Also, coach them to use lines and shapes that remind them of how the song feels. Sharp and spiky triangles? Round and gentle curves?

Still Life

Sense Engaged: SIGHT

Most art making will use children’s sense of sight, but still life paintings in particular force them to really look at the thing in front of them. Encourage them to notice what colors and shapes they are seeing. I love doing still life art with big art supplies like Chunkies and finger paint, on large pieces of paper. It encourages kids to look at the whole set up and not get caught up in details.

Draw Outside the Box

Sense Engaged: TOUCH

Have your kiddo glue found objects inside of shoe boxes or cereal boxes. Think bottle caps, wads of paper, toy cars, pebbles etc (just nothing with sharp edges that can cut fingers). Then, give them a piece of paper and have them draw the things inside of the box using only their sense of touch to figure out what is where! To increase the challenge, hide the box for a few days between doing the drawing so they forget what is where OR have multiple kids do the project and trade boxes.

Smelly Marker Portraits

Sense Engaged: SMELL

Symphony Sculptures

Sense Engaged: SOUND

Crunchy Autumn Artwork

Sense Engaged: SOUND & TOUCH

In the fall, gather big baskets of crunchy, colorful leaves outside. Give your kidd glitter glue sticks along with stiff watercolor paper or cardboard. Have them crunch up the leaves and collage them onto their canvass, using the glitter glue to attach them. If they start jumping in the leaves and throwing them around, that’s great! Encourage them to have lots of fun and move their bodies while making their artwork.