Exploring Nature with Your Five Senses

Your amazing senses

Did you know you have five special tools for exploring the world? They are called your five senses! Your senses help you see, hear, smell, touch and taste everything around you. When you go outside into nature, your senses come alive. Let's use each one to explore!

Sight: looking with your eyes 👀

Your sense of sight helps you see with your eyes. Nature is full of beautiful things to look at.

Look up high and you might see a fluffy white cloud or a bird flying past. Look down low and you might see a busy ant or a tiny flower. Look at the colours! Green leaves, brown bark, red berries, yellow petals, blue sky.

Try looking very closely at something small, like a leaf. Can you see the little lines, called veins, running through it? There is so much to see when you really look.

Hearing: listening with your ears 👂

Your sense of hearing helps you listen with your ears. Nature makes lots of sounds.

Close your eyes for a moment and just listen. What can you hear? Maybe a bird is singing tweet tweet. Maybe the wind is making the leaves go swish swish. You might hear a buzzing bee, a barking dog, or rain going pitter patter.

Some sounds are loud and some are soft. When you stay quiet and listen carefully, you hear more and more.

Smell: sniffing with your nose 👃

Your sense of smell helps you sniff with your nose. Nature has many smells, and lots of them are lovely!

Lean down and smell a flower. It might smell sweet. Smell the grass after it has been cut. Smell the rain when it first starts to fall, that fresh, earthy smell. Some smells are not so nice, like a muddy puddle or a smelly compost heap, but they are all part of nature too.

Touch: feeling with your hands ✋

Your sense of touch helps you feel things with your hands and your skin. Different things in nature feel different.

Touch the bark of a tree. Is it rough and bumpy? Touch a soft petal. Is it smooth and silky? Feel a smooth pebble, a prickly pine cone, a squishy bit of mud, or a wet leaf. Feel the warm sun on your face and the cool wind on your hands.

Always be gentle and kind when you touch nature, and wash your hands afterwards.

Taste: tasting with your tongue 👅

Your sense of taste helps you taste with your tongue. Some things in nature are yummy to eat, like a sweet strawberry or a crunchy apple.

But here is a very important rule: only taste things outdoors when a grown-up tells you it is safe. Some berries, leaves and mushrooms look pretty but can make you very poorly. So never put anything in your mouth without asking first. When a grown-up picks a safe, washed strawberry for you, that is the best way to use your sense of taste in nature!

Activity: a five senses nature walk

Go on a special nature walk and try to use all five senses, one at a time.

1. See: Find something red and something green.
2. Hear: Stop, close your eyes and count three different sounds.
3. Smell: Find a flower or some grass to sniff.
4. Touch: Find something rough and something smooth.
5. Taste: Ask your grown-up for a safe, washed snack to enjoy outdoors.

When you get home, tell someone about your favourite thing from each sense. You can even draw a picture of your nature walk!

Your senses help you discover tiny creatures too. Use your eyes to spot some in Minibeasts and Bugs. And look closely at the world of green plants in Animals and Their Homes.