Multisensory Learning in Primary Education: Engaging Young Learners Through the Five Senses

Description

Teaching young children is not an easy task, for sure, and it requires more than just explanation. Children aged 6-10 learn best when they can actually see, hear, touch, taste, and experience the world around them.

In addition, in today’s classrooms, teachers are required to respond to diverse learning styles, varying attention spans, and the growing need for inclusive and engaging teaching.

For all of these factors, sensory-based learning offers a structured and yet flexible way to engage young learners, strengthening their focus and making abstract concepts more concrete for them.

This course is designed to support Primary School teachers in integrating all of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) into everyday classroom practice.

Through workshops, games, creative tasks, and outdoor exploration, participants will experience first-hand how multisensorial activities can be integrated in engaging and meaningful classroom routines, and how they can enhance their students’ language development, memory, inclusion, and active participation.

A special focus will be on how to create activities that are simple, replicable, and realistic and, most importantly, able to stimulate young learners’ observation and communication skills, and concrete experiences (something that’s even more valuable in linguistically diverse classrooms).

Participants will be taught how to improve their skills in creating manageable strategies for managing active groups, designing experiential tasks, stimulating learning by doing, and learning how to link effective learning to real-life contexts (inside and outside the classroom).

Each day, a ready-to-use activity will be modelled to be easily adapted across different subjects.

By the end of the course, teachers will be able to design and implement multisensory lessons, increase student engagement and motivation, support different learning styles and inclusive education, and create meaningful learning experiences for Primary School children.

Concept by Roberta Peraino

Learning outcomes

The course will help participants to:

• Explain how sensory experiences support cognitive, linguistic, and social development in children aged 6–10;
• Design and implement multisensory classroom activities across different subjects for the Primary classroom;
• Use age-appropriate vocabulary and structured observation tasks related to the five senses;
• Adapt sensory-based games and hands-on activities to learners’ diverse needs;
• Develop a complete multisensory lesson plan integrating sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch;
• Foster curiosity, active participation, and inclusive learning in children through experiential strategies.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to the course

• Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
• Icebreaker activities;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools.

Sight in classroom practice

• Introduction to the five senses (and their impact on child development);
• Focus on the sense of sight;
• Visual observation games and classroom tasks;
• Using images, colors, and visual prompts for language development;
• City walk: observing the main landmarks and monuments.

Day 2 – Hearing in classroom practice

• Introduction to the sense of hearing;
• Listening games and sound recognition activities;
• Music, rhythm, and classroom routines;
• Creating simple sound-based materials.

Day 3 – Smell in classroom practice

• Introduction to the sense of smell;
• Sensory vocabulary and descriptive adjectives;
• Smell-based games and “mystery boxes”;
• Storytelling through sensory prompts;
• Inclusion and safety considerations in sensory activities.

Day 4 – Taste and touch in classroom practice

• Introduction to taste and touch;
• Sensory vocabulary (sweet, salty, sour, soft, hard, smooth);
• Hands-on cooking class(simple, child-friendly recipe);
• Exploring textures and flavors through food;
• How to adapt cooking activities for the primary classroom.

Day 5 – Integration and lesson design

• Reviewing the five senses as an integrated approach;
• Designing a multisensory lesson plan;
• Group work and project preparation;
• Presentation of the final projects;
• Final reflection and course wrap-up.

Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities

• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
• Excursion and other external cultural activities.

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