Touch is defined as the act of holding, feeling or encountering something with our hand. Skin is the largest sense organ and we receive tactile information from what is happening around us every second. Our skin enables us to perceive touch sensations and gives our brain information about the environment around us like temperature, pain, pressure. Hence sense of touch is most important senses for developing children as it helps them grasp and interact with objects and comprehend how things work.
To make the concept interesting to our children of ELP-2A, a mystery box, containing different objects, was created. As the name suggests objects were placed inside the box and children had to feel to guess the object inside the box.
“I feel something smooth; it feels like my cuddly teddy bear “said one kid
“This one is rough” I don’t like it “said another
Oh! I feel something pointy and sharp; I should be careful to touch it “said an alert boy
The pointy thing probably could’ve been a bobby pin, or the fur the child touched could’ve been a big ball of cotton and all the tactile experiences different based on the prior experience of the child.
This enabled each child to build a bridge of knowledge between the physical feel of the object and the descriptive words.
Finally when the teacher exposed the mystery contents the children gasped in awe! That some of their guesses were right and some were wrong!
