Continuing with our series on sensory activities, here is an activity for sensory awareness of smell.  Sniffing and recognizing smells may be difficult for younger kids, but not if you introduce stronger and easily distinguishable fragrances.

Just like in the hearing activities, make two sets of jars, using a total of six jars, one set with red bottles and the other set in green bottles.  Plastic spice jars are fine, and so are baby food jars. 

Place a piece of cotton wool with a few drops of a particular liquid flavoring in each pair.  Use strong easily identifiable scents like lemon, vanilla, or herbs from your kitchen – lavender, rosemary.  If you want a stronger fragrance, use lemon rinds instead, or cinnamon, cloves or other strong spices.  If you’re not using cotton balls, you’ll have to make sure the bottles are opaque.

Ask your child to open and sniff a red jar, and then, open and sniff a green jar to find the matching green jar  with the exact same scent. 

This activity can be a lot of fun, especially when it comes to the strong scents!

 
Have fun, and keep smiling.