Senses allow us to observe and understand the world around us. There are five main ways we can do this: through sight (with our eyes), touch (with our fingers), smell (with our nose), taste (with our tongue) and hearing (with our ears).Our senses send messages through receptor cells to our brain, using our nervous system to deliver that message. We can use all five of our senses at the same time without even realising it! Being the UOI topic “Senses” PP1 Geckos are exploring each and every sense and learning more about them. Taking the sense of taste, there are four kinds of taste receptors on the tongue – bitter, sweet, salt and sour. We taste food using both our sense of taste and smell. Taste buds are sensory organs that are found on our tongue and allow us to experience tastes that are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.

To Tune in the geckos into the sense of taste and to give them opportunity to explore the different tastes, the facilitators of PP1 organized the event TASTE MANIA. Different food items were kept on the table in small bowls. The children tasted all the edibles kept there and discussed how they felt. Few of them liked the sweetness of sugar and chocolate whereas others saltiness of chips. To provoke the kids to inquire about the taste station they were asked different questions like did they ever wonder why their favourite food tastes so good? Can they identify the taste of the food? They were told that they can thank their taste buds for letting them appreciate the saltiness of chips and the sweetness of ice cream. To show how exactly our taste buds look the children were asked to stick out their tongue and look into the mirror. The Geckos were shown a ppt on the diagram of the tongue too. The kids showcased the profile ‘Principled’ and attitude ‘Tolerance’ when they waited for their turn in a much disciplined manner.

Learning Outcome: The kids became aware of and got the opportunity to experience the four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Facilitators: PP1 Home Room Teachers

 

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