We’ve had a ton of coconutty fun at home this summer, so we thought we’d bring the fun to school. The preschool campers had a blast exploring coconuts with a super simple five senses activity. We did something similar at summer camp last year, with great success as well.
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Five senses activity to explore coconuts
To start everything off, I brought out a couple of coconuts. I showed them to the children and asked, “What do you see when you look at this coconut?” As expected, I heard a variety of responses!
- “Well, it’s a coconut.”
- “It’s kinda round and hairy. Why’s it got hair?”
- “Brown!”
- “What are those three things?” [pointing to the eyes of the coconut]
- “Hey, it looks like a bowling ball!”
At this point, the kiddos weren’t satisfied with just using their eyes, so I handed them the coconuts. My next question was, “How does the coconut feel?” If needed, I asked a few more questions like, “Is it rough or smooth?”
- “It’s still hairy! Is this really hair on the coconut?”
- “It’s kind of hard.”
- “Rough!”
From there, I encouraged the children to shake the coconut up. This brought with it a lot of giggles, of course! As they were taking turns, I asked, “What do you hear when you shake the coconut?”
- “There’s something inside it! What’s inside it?”
- “Water?”
- “Something’s moving around in there!”
My preschool director came over to help out with the next step . . . cracking the coconut. Oh how the children loved watching her break into the coconuts! As she was doing this, the kids and I discussed more about what we saw and what we heard.
Once the coconuts were opened up, I asked the children, “What does it smell like?” I have to admit, I didn’t get as many engaged responses to this question! The children were too interested in getting their hands (and mouths) on the coconut!
The last step was definitely the most fun for the children! We parceled out bits of coconuts and the children were so excited to try! Not all of the children tried a taste, but I was so impressed with how many did! Of course, my last question for this five senses activity was, “What does the coconut taste like?” We tried talking about sour and sweet, but the kiddos focused on whether they liked the taste or not.
- “It tastes just like coconut. But it’s wetter.” [I think he was referring to dried, bagged coconut.]
- “Oh, I do NOT like that. It just didn’t taste good!”
- “More?”
- “I love it!”
- “The water inside it was yummy but I don’t really like the white stuff.”
Some of the children just didn’t care for the taste. Others loved it so much they asked for seconds and thirds. I had planned on taking the leftover coconut home to our hermit crabs, but one little girl pleaded with me not to. So instead we sent the extra home with the coconut lovers of the group!
As I said previously, this was a very basic five senses activity. But it’s the perfect example of how easy activities are wonderful teaching opportunities. We discussed our five senses, we used a variety of descriptive words, and we also engaged in higher level thinking. All while having fun and trying out a different kind of snack!
Have you and the kids every tried a five senses activity like this one? If so, how’d it go?
For more fun ideas, check out my Theme: All About Me Pinterest board, as well as my Sensory Activities Pinterest board.
Five Senses Books
As you can see, you can use absolutely anything for a five senses activity. I tend to find that the children are more engaged when we use a novel item. But sometimes, I like to use familiar items, blindfold them, and let them guess what the items are after using their other senses to explore them. The children really love getting to explore with their senses regardless of how it’s presented!
So, since you can use anything you’ve got on hand to create a five senses activity, I’m going to skip materials recommendations and give you a list of my very favorite five senses books, perfect for preschoolers! Check them out below. I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
Done-for-You Preschool Resources
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Preschool Teacher 101 is excited to share with you some amazing lesson plans, activity packs, and much more! We offer a wide variety of themes that are frequently used in preschool classrooms, as well as some less common (but super interesting) themes. Click on the image below to learn more about our five senses product!
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This looks like so much fun! We haven’t ever explored a coconut. I think my son would really love to.
Thank you for sharing what your class did with your coconuts. We do a very similar activity and all seem to get something out of it.
That’s wonderful! 🙂
Hi I have done this before and the children always like it! The hardest is to open the coconut!
Yes, the kids sure seem to love it! I ran into the same thing with opening the coconut. I actually spent some time looking up the best ways to open a coconut and those tutorials helped the most. I should track them down and share them in this post.
Last year I did a complete lesson around coconut with my elementary students where I taught them the benefits and showed them each part and asked them to touch and feel them. But integrating it with five senses will really help me do it this year with different idea.
Let me know how it goes if you’re able to try this! It sounds like you already have a wonderful coconut exploration lesson for your students.