🌿 Step 1: Remember and Imagine
Using sensory memory to enrich mental images
👦🏻 Target age: 6–12 years
⏰ Duration: 5 to 10 minutes per session
Setup: the teacher invites students to enter a meditative state. Ideally, they sit comfortably, close their eyes, and breathe deeply to prepare their mind. Soft background music (nature sounds, etc.) and floral scents may be added.
🟢 Exercise 1. Recall familiar sensations
💡 Objective: Awaken students’ sensory memory by recalling simple, reassuring, and familiar memories, linked to one sense at a time. Guiding questions help with mental visualization.
👁 See in your head
- A familiar object: their bed, pillow, favorite toy, or a comforting object
- A loved face: someone close they care deeply about
- A familiar place: the entrance of their home, school, or a well-known path
👂 Hear in your head
- A daily sound: the doorbell, a key turning in the lock
- A familiar voice: that of a parent or someone close
- At school: the bell announcing recess or the return to class
🤲 Touch in your head
- The feeling of lifting a backpack
- The sensation of petting an animal or someone’s hair
- The softness of fabric or a comforting object like a toy
👅 Taste in your head
- The taste of chocolate (or a favorite food)
- The taste of spinach (or a disliked food)
- The fizzy taste of a soda
👃 Smell in your head
- The smell of their house or bedroom
- The smell of soap, or of trash
- The smell of a dish they like—or dislike
🎭 Feel in the body (kinesthesia)
- The cool air entering while breathing
- The sensation of warmth, or cold
- The feeling of thirst
📌 Tip: Don’t mix senses in the same exercise. Focus on one sense at a time to make sensory memory more accessible.
📌 Variation / Extension:
Students can suggest their own examples, as long as they are simple, personal, and linked to a single sense.
🟢 Exercise 2. Expand the first mental images
💡 Objective: Enrich these memories by adding context and movement: widening a frame, extending a sound, perceiving a transformation.
We keep the same sensory base, but make it “come alive” mentally.
👁 See
From the bed → to the whole room → to the objects inside → to a person entering
👂 Hear
From the doorbell → to the creak of the door → to someone speaking or coming in
🤲 Touch
From the backpack → to putting it on your back → to the feeling of walking with it
👅 Taste
From chocolate → to a cake or cookie with it → to a drink
👃 Smell
From the smell of the bedroom → to that of a meal → to a surprise smell in the hallway (fries being cooked!)
🎭 Kinesthesia
From thirst → to the act of drinking → to the refreshing feeling in the body
📌 Tip: Gradually expand the images, without mixing senses. Each sensation can become a small scene in the head, like a mini-movie. It’s a slow process, but highly beneficial for focus, memory, and imagination.
🌟 Step conclusion
We awakened our sensory memory by recalling past experiences.
In the next step, we will start from real, immediate sensory experiences (smelling, touching, tasting…) to learn how to transform them into mental images.