TOUCH
Your body is covered in skin from your head to your toe. This helps to
form a barrier to protect everything on the inside, but also to let you know
how everything around you feels. What is around you right now? Is there
something smooth you can touch? Is there something scratchy or rough?
The special nerves in your skin pick up the feeling of smooth or rough and
send a message through your nerves to your brain.
There are all different types of nerves in your skin that notice all different
types of feeling. They can tell you whether something is warm or cold,
sticky or smooth, soft or hard and wet or dry. What happens if you pinch
your skin? It hurts, doesn't it? Some of the nerves in your skin react to pain
which is very useful as it tells your brain something is hurting your body.
Ask someone to lay out objects in front of you and see if you can work
out what they are using just your sense of touch. Now lay a tea towel over
them or put on gloves and see if you can still do it. We use our hands all
the time, and so they have lots and lots of touch nerves in them.
SMELL
Can you think of something that you really don't like the smell of? What
smells really horrible? Maybe you thought of rubbish bins or car fumes?
Now think of something you like the smell of. What is your favourite smell?
Flowers or bubble baths maybe?
All of these invisible smells are all around us all the time even though you
cannot see them. When you breathe in through your nose, they travel
up your nose. High up inside your nose there are special cells that smell.
These cells send messages all the way to your brain about what you can
smell. Test someone's smell cells – ask them to close their eyes and hold
different things under their nose and see if they can recognise the smells.
SPARK
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