Five Senses Activity: Making Pine Needle Tea!

Are you looking for fun things to do outside for the whole family? You have to try this five senses activity! This activity took me outside of my comfort zone—and it almost didn’t happen because of that. But… I am so happy it did! For this five senses activity, we explored the sense of taste—outside—with wild edible plants!

Just before we get into the five senses activity, I also wanted to share this FREE Four Season Nature Walk Printable with you! This sweet printable encourages you to use all of your senses as you explore the outdoors. Do you hear those birds singing? Feel the prickly pine needles? Nature walks are such a magical experience with little ones, and these printables are the perfect addition!

Five Senses Activities in Nature

Before we get into the pine needle tea, let’s do a quick recap of the rest of the five senses activities in nature:

Sense of Sight Activity: We started our five senses journey with the sense of sight, making some simple paper plate frames (or “noticers,” as we called them). By looking through a frame, the kids were able to really focus on their sense of sight, discovering so many beautiful nature sights and building their vocabularies as we chatted about their discoveries. 

Sense of Sound Activity: Next up, we explored the sense of sound. On a nature walk, we listened for the sounds of nature—the crunch of the leaves under our feet, squirrels jumping through branches, the wind blowing through the trees. We also made our own sounds! Lots of them. Lots. You would be surprised how much learning can take place just by discovering all of the ways a stick can make noise in a forest!

Sense of Smell Activity: Since we did this activity when it was quite cold, and everything smelled sort of, well… cold… we got creative with a cinnamon hide-and-seek game!

Sense of Touch Activity: For the sense of touch, we brought some playdough outside and explored all of the different textures by making imprints with the dough. We also took turns making imprints and seeing who could guess what nature item made the imprint.

Okay, now on to the sense of taste!

Exploring the Sense of Taste in Nature

Let me preface this by saying that I love nature activities for kids (if that wasn’t already obvious). We are outside in the wind, rain, sun, and snow (and boy oh boy do get snow!). I love letting my wee ones explore all nature has to offer. But the sense of taste? This one made me uncomfortable. After a few episodes of Survivorman, some library books on wild edible plants, and a knowledgeable hubby by my side… we began our adventure.

The kids were, of course, very excited. But I made it clear we would not eat anything until we got home.  For this first adventure exploring taste in nature, I wanted to bring everything home first and really look carefully and double-check books. Wild edible plants sometimes look a whole heck of a lot like wild poisonous plants!

Interestingly, as we began our adventure, we found wild edible plants everywhere! Even now, in November. Madeline had found a neat recipe in one of the books for Pine Tree Tea, so that was one of our first things to gather. Easy enough! I know a pine tree.

The berries, on the other hand, were tricky. We took pictures of the trees and bushes and brought some berries home with us. We did not bring home any blue or yellow berries at all, as they tend to be poisonous.

The kids were eager to get home to do some research and tasting, so our nature walk was rather short. Which was okay by me, as it had started to snow—and although the babes were bundled, Mama forgot her mittens!

This really was real-life learning at its best! The books were opened before coats were taken off. Berries were being measured and examined, and oral language was filling the family room—talk of textures, colors, and consistencies.

We referenced Wild Edible Plants by Thomas S. Elias & Peter A. Dykeman and Wild Edibles by Sergei Boutenko.

Truth be told, we only successfully identified two nature items. At least, we identified enough that I felt comfortable having my wee ones taste them: elderberries and pine needles. The elderberries were tasted raw. That is quite the experience! And the pine needles were made into a tea.

Five Senses Activity: How to Make Pine Needle Tea

Please be advised: I am not Les Stroud nor am I anything at all like him. My knowledge of edible plants so far consists of two books, one adventure, and multiple Survivorman episodes. According to the books I read, it is safe for most people to consume pine needles EXCEPT for infants and pregnant/nursing mamas. Also, people with allergies should avoid pine. Please do your own research; it’s part of the fun!

Ingredients

• 5 cups water
• 1 cup pine needles

Directions

Here is how to make a simple pot of pine needle tea:

1. In a large pot, bring approximately 5 cups of water to a boil.
2. While you wait for the water to boil, break off the individual pine needles from where they were attached to the tree. We ended up with about 1 cup worth of pine needs.
3. When the water starts to boil, add your pine needles, then let them steep for around 10 minutes.
4. Strain and enjoy! Simple!

Apparently, in the spring, pine needles are very high in protein because of the pollen and can be added to smoothies for an extra kick—pretty cool!

So, how did my wee ones enjoy their pine needle tea? Well… they definitely explored their sense of taste! As Madeline said, “It tasted like drinking a Christmas tree.” And so it did. Fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!

This was our favorite five senses activity. (Have I said that each time?) But this one was truly very fun and so full of nature learning! Wild edible plants are everywhere, maybe even right in front of your nose (do you have your Christmas tree up?).

If you enjoy connecting, playing, and learning with your little one in nature, you’ll love Nature School! Nature School is your outdoor learning companion. In it, you’ll find simple ways to incorporate literacy, numeracy, fine motor development, sensory play, and crafting into your time outdoors.

Take a peek and get your copy of Nature School right here: https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/nature-school

Thank you so much for reading, my friend!

xo
Sarah