Five senses books for preschoolers teach children about the ways in which the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing help us explore the world. There are many fabulous children’s about the five senses, and we have narrowed them down to a list of our very favorites!
Five senses books for preschoolers help kids learn to explore their worlds.
When preschool rolls around, toddlers begin to learn all about the five senses. Preschoolers learn the importance of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and then begin recognizing how to engage their senses to explore the world around them. Books about the five senses help toddlers learn valuable skills about how their bodies and senses work!
Books about the five senses help increase toddlers’ understanding of everyday experiences
Books about the five senses for preschoolers help kids better navigate the world around them and how they feel about their everyday experiences.
Learning about the sense of smell helps kids recognize what scents are yummy and comforting and which may be yucky, scary, or even dangerous.
Similarly, learning about the sense of hearing helps preschoolers take in important information about sounds and voices they hear every day. These sounds help children organize their routines, alert them to particular events, and even warn them of impending challenges or dangers.
When preschoolers learn about the sense of sight, they are working to decipher patterns and practicing oh-so-important early literacy skills! This important sense helps children recognize letters and words and enhances their memory, too.
Learning about taste helps enhance our children’s palettes and encourages kids to experiment with new foods and combinations.
Finally, exploring the sense of touch helps children learn about their bodies, how we communicate with others through touch, and how we can eventually use our hands and feet for important activities like writing, fastening buttons, and even learning to walk.
RELATED: We’ve got more than 100 children’s book lists on Happily Ever Elephants. Be sure to check out this link!
Frequently asked questions
Use picture books about the five senses, of course! Picture books are a great way to introduce kids to the five senses and teach them which parts of the body are responsible for each sense. In addition to reading and looking at pictures of the body, there are a multitude of great toddler activities that help kids explore the five senses, such as mystery boxes and sensory bins to explore the sense of touch.
It’s simple! Children use their five senses to learn about the world, their environment, and their surroundings. They help us figure out what is happening around us and determine whether or not we may enjoy a particular situation. Learning about the five senses helps preschoolers to better understand everyday experiences.
If you are looking to explore each of the five senses and you want an awesome collection, you simply cannot go wrong with Ruth Spiro’s Baby Loves the Five Senses set. These books are simply fabulous for taking important concepts and breaking them down into easy-to-digest material for young kids to understand. Plus, the illustrations by Irene Chan are vibrant and joyful! I also adore My City Speaks, by Darren LeBeuf and Ashley Barron, for the way it shows a visually impaired child using her senses to navigate her neighborhood. It’s a gem. All of these books are featured below!
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We love these five senses books for preschoolers!
If you are looking for an awesome book set to explore all of the five senses with your child, this one is fantastic. I have forever loved the “Baby Loves” board books, with their expert-endorsed information told simply enough for our youngest learners. This set offers books about hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell, and readers are given basic scientific information about how and why our senses work. We also love the way these books recognize and celebrate diversity. Not all people are the same, and even if our senses work differently (some people can’t hear, some need glasses, and some don’t like receiving hugs), we are no less special or valuable. I can’t get enough of Ruth Spiro’s work, and these are my very favorite five senses books for preschoolers!
I adore this book about a visually impaired child who explores the city with her father. Though she cannot see, she paints a visual picture of her neighborhood with everything she hears and feels around her. This is a fabulous story to help children recognize that we can use all of our senses to describe our environments, and we can “see” with more than just our eyes. This is another one of my favorite five senses books for preschoolers.
We love this fabulous five senses book that gives a fun and informative introduction to our important senses. Our ears, eyes, noses, mouths, and hands help us hear, see, smell, taste, and touch — and this great read-aloud takes kids on a journey through how we can experience the world through these important senses. This is a great book to help children delight in their body’s ability to understand the power and significance of each unique sense.
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What is that noise? We love the way this fabulous book by an award-winning musician takes young readers on a journey through everyday sounds. From the squeak of a mouse to the eek of a door to the rumbles and grumbles of the world around us, this is a musical, rhythmic delight that engages readers of all ages as they listen to a cacophony of sounds throughout the neighborhood.
This stunning children’s book about flowers helps kids explore a bloom using all of their five senses. What color is it? How does it smell? This beautiful, Caldecott-winning story encourages children to observe the world closely, as looking at something – really looking with all 5 senses – can expand our perspective and perception.
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This fabulous book teaches point of view to children and is a wonderful book about the sense of sight. As a cat walks through his day, he comes across various animals and is perceived in astonishingly different ways, from predator to huggable house pet. Some view the cat in color, others in black and white, some from up above, and some from down below. This book offers a phenomenal segue for discussing observation and for teaching perspective with young children, and it helps them understand that we all have unique relationships with every person (or animal!) we come across.
Uh oh! Arlo needs to get glasses! Arlo’s owner takes him to the eye doctor after Arlo can no longer play catch. The poor pup simply can’t see the ball! But once he gets his new specs, Arlo is back in the game in no time. This story is an interactive dream, containing awesome pop-ups like an eye chart that shows kids how people with vision challenges may view the alphabet, as well as a really cool, multi-layered phoropter. These elements truly help demystify the experience a child may have on his first visit to the eye doctor! But the most fun part of the book is the fact that it comes with several pairs of adorable frames for Arlo to “try on” after his visit to the doctor.
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This darling board book helps our youngest readers learn about the sense of taste. How might different foods taste, and are they good or bad? Is spaghetti yummy or yucky? How about mommy’s cookies or coffee? Through expressive illustrations of a young toddler trying many different foods, this book never fails to make little ones laugh as they discover what foods may taste great – and which ones are quite the opposite! For more great books about opposites, click here!
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From the phenomenal Little Senses series, this is an important story about what happens when a day at the beach turns too loud and too sandy for one sensitive boy. Preparing to see the ocean is exciting, but when you get there, and things get overwhelming, what to do? One clever dad has some ideas and tricks to help his little one work through the sounds, sites, and sensations that are a bit too much to handle. Another fabulously sensitive portrayal of a child with autism or sensory processing disorder! For more on this fabulous series to help children with sensory processing disorder, click the link!
Both of my kids were absolutely enamored with Usborne’s “touchy-feely” books, particularly the “That’s not my…” series. I can say without a doubt that these tactile, interactive books for toddlers are some of the best board books out there, especially when exploring the sense of touch! Each book in this series features an animal, person, or object combined with simple repetitive text. Each page invites tiny fingers to explore various different textures (fuzzy, rough, soft, bumpy, etc). The books are sturdy and well-built, the illustrations are bright and fun, and the textures help develop and stimulate sensory skills.
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What happens when a big smelly bear refuses to take a bath? For starters, no one wants to hang out with him because he’s so stinky! Even worse? Big smelly bear gets a big bad itch. Though he first refuses to believe he smells and gets into a bit of a tiff with Big Fluffy Bear, he finally acquiesces. Not only does his bath make him smell better and help him gain a new pal, but he also comes out of it without that pesky itch. It’s a win-win! For more books about germs and hygiene, click the link!
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Little Bear feels his way around the world, from his bed rumbling when he gets woken up in the morning, to the floor shaking when his teacher tries to get his attention by stomping. He also can’t seem to understand any of his friends’ jokes, and why does everyone keep asking him “can bears ski?” One day, Little Bear’s dad takes him to the audiologist which is where Little Bear learns he is deaf and will begin to wear hearing aids. Little Bear’s world is so much louder with his hearing aids, and it will take some time to navigate. Yet with dad’s help, he’ll be just fine! We love this gentle book and the way the author draws on his own experiences to tell the story. Wonderful!
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What is that awful smell coming from the refrigerator? Sir French Toast’s nephew, Inspector Croissant, begs Toast and Lady Pancake to help him find the source of the terrible odor. Could it be Baron von Waffle, or perhaps a foul fish hiding at the bottom of Corn Chowder Lake? Something stinks, and it’s up to your favorite ingredients in the fridge to solve the mystery!
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If you want to discover how to connect with the world around you, use your senses! What do you see? Hear? Taste? Smell? Feel? This is a poetic, lyrical story about how we can listen to our surroundings and all of the world’s important parts and components by utilizing our different senses.
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This is a fabulous book (not to mention visually stunning), that encourages children to give voice to the sounds they hear around them. From the plop of a raindrop to the whop of a ball hitting the fence to the wham of a shutting door, children will love acting out the sounds they hear, al while marveling over the eye-catching art. Originally written in the 1970s, this one is a classic!
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Beware the spicy salsa! Dragons love all kinds of tacos, so if you are having a dragon party, tacos should definitely be on the menu. They taste so delicious! But beware. If there is one thing dragons hate as much as they love tacos, it’s salsa. Spicy salsa. If a dragon accidentally eats some spicy salsa? Watch out – because you’ll be in some hot, hot trouble!
Happy reading!
RELATED: We’ve got a fabulous list of kindergarten read-alouds for you on Happily Ever Elephants, so be sure to check them out!
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