Five Senses Facts & Worksheets

When we think of basic human senses, we know them as eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. These allow us to respond to receive information from the world around us and react to it. The ability to sense involves the particular sense organ, nerves and the nervous system, as well as the brain.

See the fact file below for more information on the Five Senses, or you can download our 30-page Five Senses worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

The Sense of Touch

• A sense that most people are somewhat familiar with is touch or tactile sense. Anything and everything that touches the skin triggers a response from the touch sense. 
• The skin is a very intelligent organ. More than just contact can elicit a response. It transmits vibration, temperature, touch, and pain sensory signals.
• As important as sight or hearing, touch is a crucial sense that is considerably less obvious and harder to research. 
• This might be because it is a passive sense that we are unable to control and frequently fail to connect it to the particular feelings it permits us to experience, like pain or cold.
• It continually makes humans aware of their surroundings and the circumstances in which they find themselves and sends them a warning signal in the event they injure themselves. 
• Without such stimuli, humans can act in ways that cause harm without realizing it, or it might be harder to recognize certain body cues. 
• This sense not only provides humans with the pleasures of touch but also enables them to interact with other people through handshakes, hugs, and other forms of physical contact.

The Sense of Hearing

• The ability to receive sounds through an organ, such as the ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of an environment is known as hearing or auditory perception.
• The ability of the sense of hearing to discern between music, speech, and environmental noises is superior to that of other sensory organs. 
• The human ear is also quicker and more sensitive than the human eye. Between six and eight words can be understood in the time it takes the brain to detect a visual stimulus, which is far faster than the brain can process an image.
• Loss of hearing can make it difficult for a person to enjoy and participate in many of life’s most treasured moments.
• These treasured moments include: hearing the voice or laughter of a loved one, having deep conversations with family and friends, hearing the sounds of nature, or watching their favorite shows or sporting events. 
• Hearing loss is also connected to melancholy, chronic illness, and feelings of social exclusion.

The Sense of Smell

• Olfaction, or the sense of smell, is a unique sense that allows people to perceive smells or aromas. 
• This sense serves various purposes, including identifying tasty foods, potential dangers, and pheromones. It also affects taste.
• Airborne chemicals that trigger the sense of smell enter the body through the mouth and nose, where they connect to receptor cells lining the mucous membranes at the back of the nose.
• Millions of these cells make up the human body, although there are only a few hundred different kinds of olfactory receptors.
• Additionally, the sense of smell functions independently as well as in coordination with the sense of taste. 
• Organic molecules enter the olfactory epithelium through the nostrils as well as the mouth when we chew and swallow food. Food is not perceived as richly as it should be if the sense of smell is suppressed during a cold, leaving only the sense of taste.

The Sense of Taste

• The sensory system that contributes to the perception of flavor is the gustatory system or sense of taste.
• A substance in the mouth combines chemically with taste receptor cells on taste buds in the oral cavity, primarily on the tongue, to generate or stimulate the impression of taste.
• The sense of taste is crucial because it lets the individual select the proper diet needed for one’s existence, maintenance, and function.
• It is crucial to our ability to survive. This sophisticated chemical sense interacts with other senses like vision, smell, and touch and is linked to the functioning of temperature and consistency sensors in addition to other senses like touch.
• Taste receptor cells, which are grouped together to form taste buds, mediate the experience of taste. A taste sensation is sent to brainstem areas by taste receptor cells, which sample mouth amounts of several tiny chemicals.
• There are five primary tastes known as bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and “fleshy” (umami), each of which plays a part in food choice by allowing us to identify certain compounds that may be beneficial to our bodies or harmful. 
• Taste cells, which are found in the tongue, oral cavity, and proximal portion of the esophagus, contain the taste cells.

The Sense of Sight

• The ability to observe things around you using your eyes is known as the sense of sight. Additionally, it is the capacity to recognize color, brightness, and depth. 
• One of the five senses used by humans, sight is regarded as one of the most complicated. The eyeball is the organ that provides vision; it is a roughly ping-pong-sized, asymmetrical globe.
• Vision and sight enable humans to interact with their surroundings. Humans are able to perceive movement through sight. 
• Thus, humans are able to judge that movement through sight. A person’s vision enables a person to observe and comprehend the meaning of an event and make interpretations.
• Last but not least, vision and sight keep humans active and attentive. Maintaining your vision is crucial if you want to stay connected to the outside world and be able to react quickly to any circumstance that may arise.

Lesser Known Senses

Vestibular

• Humans can move easily owing to the vestibular sense, also referred to as the movement, gravity, and/or balance sense. 
• The vestibular system gives the body the sensation of balance and the knowledge of its position that is necessary for quick compensatory movements in response to forces that are both internally and externally generated.
• It activates a number of reflex circuits that are in charge of compensatory movements and postural corrections.
• In order to produce perceptions of gravity and movement, it also activates neural pathways that lead to the brain.
• Vestibular also aids in maintaining an individual’s equilibrium while they walk and run, as well as when they sit and stand.

Proprioception

• The sensation of body awareness is called proprioception. It is also the ability of an individual to detect their body’s position and movement, as well as their sense of equilibrium and balance, senses that rely on the concept of force.
• It provides information on a person’s physical parts without requiring them to search for them. 
• Knowing how the bodily parts relate to one another makes it easier to coordinate movements. Additionally, it provides guidance on how much pressure to apply when grasping, pressing, tugging, or lifting objects.

Common Sense

• A person’s innate capacity for making wise decisions and acting in a reasonable and practical manner is known as common sense. 
• It might also be a sensible assessment of everyday issues or a fundamental capacity for perception, comprehension, and judgment that is possessed by almost everyone.
• Additionally, common sense is a method of making practical decisions and the capacity to foresee the outcomes of a human action. It prevents irrational decisions from being made and facilitates decision-making. Every human being has the ability to perform in situations that are typical of daily life.

The Five Senses Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about The Five Senses across 30 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about the five senses. These allow us to respond to receive information from the world around us and react to it. The ability to sense involves the particular sense organ, nerves and the nervous system, as well as the brain.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

1. Five Senses Facts
2. Taking Care of our Body
3. Sense of Sight
4. Sense of Hearing
5. Sense of Touch
6. Sense of Taste
7. Sense of Smell
8. The Vestibular Sense
9. Proprioception
10. Practice Common Sense
11. Animal Senses

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/science/five-senses/">Five Senses Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, December 7, 2022

Link will appear as Five Senses Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, December 7, 2022