TOUCHING ACTIVITY

Detectives

Key background information

This activity is intended to stimulate the children’s interest in and knowledge of ‘touch words’, so it is essential to insist that the children work ‘in secret’, giving clues to the feel of the object, but not giving away its identity. Tell them they have to help each other become detectives!

Preparation

The activity ‘Surprise, surprise’ could be used to introduce the idea of touching and describing unseen objects. Cut two holes, big enough for a child’s hand to go through, in either side of a cardboard box (a shoebox is ideal). (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1

Resources needed

A box (as above); a selection of differently-textured objects, such as a piece of bubble wrap, a pineapple, a ball of wool, a toothbrush, a mirror; one copy per child of the sheet. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2

What to do

Produce the box with, for example, an orange hidden inside. Tell them that you are going to play a guessing game. Although it is simply the old ‘touch box’ routine, give it a new twist by suggesting that the children are to be detectives. They have to guess what is hidden in the box just from clues which describe, not what it is, but how it feels.

Start the game off, showing how it is played. Put your hand into the box and give the first ‘touch’ clue: It feels like a ball. Encourage the children to ask questions so that it develops into a question and answer session. They may ask, Can you play with it? After answering that you can not play with it, give another touch clue: I can feel it rolling around the box. There is a little round piece like a button on the top. Go on in this fashion until the children have done their detective work and they ask, Can you eat it?

To begin with, you may need to help the children with the kind of question to ask; but they soon understand what is required.

Now it is the turn of the children. Allow a child to choose one of the objects in secret. He or she should hide it in the box, put their hands through the hole and tell the others what the hidden object feels like.

What they may find difficult at first is not saying what the object is, but simply giving touch clues. Encourage them to explore the ideas of shape, relative size and texture.

When they are asked What does it feel like? do not accept just smooth, but encourage them to pursue the idea. Smooth as...? It can be smooth as ice-cream, as a mirror, as a black cat’s coat, as velvet. Try to give everybody a turn, perhaps not the first time round, but on some other occasion.

After working through a number of touch words, turn the activity around and get the children to match up the touch words on the sheet with things that feel shiny, rough, hairy and so on. Discuss the children’s ideas and ask them to draw three pictures in each set – for example, under shiny they might draw a mirror, a coin and a windowpane.

Suggestions for extension

Let the children try this activity from a different angle. Ask a group of about five children to explore with their fingers, in secret, a grapefruit, a pencil or a shell, for example, either using the touch box or simply feeling without looking. They should each find one thing to say about how it feels. They then return to the main group to give their five touch clues. As soon as those in the audience think they can guess the object’s identity they can raise their hands, but must not call out. The children in the group of five should choose someone to answer, going from one member of the audience to another until the object is correctly guessed. Then another group takes over.

Children who are writing independently could write their own ‘What am I?’ riddle. They may be able to add a picture, to their writing. The picture could be hidden under a flap.

Suggestions for support

If there are children who find it difficult to find the vocabulary for this activity, help them by offering leading questions: Is it rough or smooth? Is it round like a ball or round like a plate? Get them to answer using the appropriate words back to you: Yes, it is smooth. It feels round like a ball.

Assessment opportunities

Give the children a selection of objects similar to those already used (for example: ball of string, a hairbrush, a marble, a peach) and ask them to suggest ways of describing the feel of these new objects. Encourage them to use touch words and images with which they have already become familiar. They might say, The peach is round like the moon and feels as fuzzy as a new tennis ball.

Display ideas

Make a textured ‘quilt’ with pieces of different materials. Glue scraps of soft, shiny, bubbly, rough and hairy materials on to a quartered background with the appropriate touch word displayed above them. On the display table, lay out a selection of objects, again divided into sets by touch, for example: shells, stones, a brick, a brass bell.