These five senses art activities for preschoolers, activate their creative spirit and encourage creative play, all while making artwork and having mondo fun!
Hello preschool parents and teachers!
So I was plonking around on the web the other day, trying to figure out what content I could make for you guys, and I stumbled upon some intriguing search terms. Check them out:
Five Senses Art Activities for Preschoolers
5 Senses Activities Preschool
A lot of you are looking for 5 senses activities to do with your preschoolers! As a children’s book illustrator and arts educator, I literally could not imagine a more enjoyable list of ideas to put together. So that’s just what I did. “Five Senses Art Activities for Preschoolers” is coming at ya HOT!
But, just in case you wandered in here by mistake and aren’t totally on board with the “Sensory Art For Preschoolers” thing, let me see if I can bring you around. Let’s talk about preschoolers and why they need sensory creative play.
Sensory Creative Play is FOOD for Creative Spirits
If you are fortunate enough to have preschoolers in your life then you probably already know this. Still, I want to take a second to recognize what creative bosses these little humans are.
Preschoolers are emerging from the baby and toddler years when they have been cocooned in their family homes. They have their own special logic. To them, the world is still a magical place. Pair that with their strong language skills and physical abilities and you have some masters of creative play on your hands.
The best way to engage these creative spirits and get those neural connectors connecting, is to engage their 5 senses. By engaging their sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch, we can help give them major brain juice and stimulation.
Without further preamble, here is a list of Five Senses Art Activities for Preschoolers that I came up with to do just that. I’m excited to see which catch your fancy.
Below the list, I also threw in some thoughts about art and communication, creative play and a link to my favorite arts supplies checklist!
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” mystery
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 Music
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
Purchase some smelly markers from your favorite kid’s art supply brand. Have each student do a self portrait in 2-4 markers. Then, hang them up on the wall along with a blank piece of paper below. Have all of the kids do a critique by smelling each other’s portraits and writing on the paper what they smell. The combinations should be interesting!
Symphony Sculptures
Sense Engaged: SOUND
Give your kiddo lots of objects that make noise. Flexi straws, metal can tabs that clink against each other, rubber bands, etc. Then, give them each some stiff cardboard, tape and glue. Have them try to attach the objects onto the cardboard so that they can “play” their sculpture! Invite them to add colors with collage pieces to make it even more fun. Afterwards, have them play their sculptures for you!
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.
A quick note about ART and COMMUNICATION
Art and communication go hand in hand so when we are making artwork with our preschoolers, a big part of the process is talking things through. I love using lots of yummy visual and artistic vocabulary. Here are just a few phrases you might hear me saying:
“I love that blue you’ve chosen! Would you describe it as a blue green or more as a blue violet?”
“Oooh, that twisty line you’ve drawn reminds me of mountains. What were you thinking about when you made it?”
“Would you describe this drawing as more abstract or representational?”
Representational might seem like a HUGE word for a 4 year old but you’d be surprised what these smarty pants can absorb! And yes, you can consider that a potty training pun if you like.
Don’t worry- Creative Play is Art too
One of the things I adore about making artwork with preschoolers is how easily it integrates with their other creative play. Whether they are cooking something up in their kitchen, trying on costumes or tracking slugs in the garden, the movements and mindset they use is the same as when they are throwing paint on a canvas. It’s all an expression of imagination!
So even if you’re preschoolers isn’t enthusiastically taking to the art table, rest assured that as long as they are engaging in creative play, their creative spirit is being nurtured.
Making Artwork with Preschoolers makes Sense!
See what I did there? Ok, please ignore that bad pun but please DO get rolling on these fun art activities! These are just a few Five Senses Art Activities for Preschoolers. The possibilities for making artwork and creative play in this area are endless. I’m excited to hear what you try and what new, awesome ideas you come up with yourself.
Have fun with your sweet, creative spirits!
More Creative Resources for Infants and Toddlers
Looking for an art supplies checklist to nurture your kiddo’s creative spirit? Check out my blog posts, Best Kids’ Art Supplies for Sculpting and Art Supplies Checklist for Toddlers for ideas and inspiration.
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