Sweet and sour

Produced by FunKids Radio and the RSC, this short snippet uses Kareena and her superhero friend K-Mistry to introduce children to how the 5 senses help us perceive food.

This podcasts can be used as a ’hook’ when introducing the topic to your students, or at the end of a lesson to stimulate discussion about what they have learnt.

If you teach primary science, see the headings below to find out how to use this resource:

Skill development

Children will develop their working scientifically skills by:

• Asking their own questions about scientific phenomena.
• Drawing conclusions and raising further questions that could be investigated, based on their data and observations.
• Using appropriate scientific language and ideas to explain, evaluate and communicate their methods and findings.

Learning outcomes

Children will:

• Identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body and state which part of the body is associated with each sense.

Concepts supported

Children will learn:

• The main parts of the human body and those associated with the 5 senses.
• That the senses are important in identifying our environment
• That the senses often work together to provide the brain with an accurate picture of our environment

Suggested activity use

This activity provides a way into exploring the five classical senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. After listening to the recording, children could work in groups to use their different senses to identify objects or food. The children could explore whether they needed to use just one, several or all of the senses to discover what the mystery objects are.

This activity would provide a good opportunity to explore taste. Children could explore why they lose their sense of taste when they have a cold, and learn about the close relationship between taste and smell.

Practical considerations

A range of different foods and objects will be required for children to attempt to identify using only one sense.

Please take into account and health and safety considerations, particularly those relating to allergies.