Our sense of touch can tell us many things about the world. Let's make a list of the different things we can learn by touching, handling, feeling, and manipulating (say "man-IPP- you-late-ing") items with our hands.

(1) We can tell how big it is, unless it is the size of an elephant!; (2) We can tell what shape it is; (3) We can tell if it is wet or dry, hard or soft, rough or smooth, light or
heavy, warm or cool. We can tell these things if the item is small enough that we can feel its' entire surface with our hands while our body stays in one place. If the item is so big that we have to walk around in order to feel all of it, it becomes difficult to "see" in our "mind's eye." We cannot tell color by touching, but if the thing we touch feels like fur, our memory tells us that it is probably brown or black, just because we already know that many animals are brown or black.

We have some feely boxes, and, just in case, we have blindfolds also. Sometimes it is difficult for us to tell one or more of our senses not to work, because they all like
to work together. The feely boxes have things inside that we can touch, and try to name the things that we feel.

There is nothing inside the boxes that can hurt you or frighten you. It is not a good idea to put your hand inside of something you can't see, such as a hole in a tree, because there may be a nest of bees that would sting, or a little animal that would bite. Always look before putting your hands into something.

It's okay to put your hand inside a feely box at home or at school.

Box No. 1 has some things in it that you can handle, and feeling them can help you know what kind of things they are. Write down what you think the stuff is, and why you think so.

Once you know what those things are, you can ask for one piece of the same stuff, and, by touch only, find its partner in the feely box. Write down what quality it is that causes the two items to be partners.

Box No. 2 has some certain shapes of pieces of wood inside. You must feel them, and by feeling only, find two partners. Why are they partners? How can you tell?