We are learning about the Five Senses and I decided that this week, we should focus on one sense each day. Today was Smell Day. Last night I put various food items with distinctive scents into little plastic tubs, and today I sat at the science center at centers time and the kids stopped by to check out the smells.
Lemon was popular, as were cinnamon and peanutbutter. They were confused by sesame oil, and split on onions. “My mom!” exclaimed one little boy, whose English is limited. He didn’t like the smell but he was happy to be reminded of something with which his mother cooks. My vanilla smelled weird — I thought they’d love the smell, but it didn’t smell right. I wonder if storing it plastic overnight made it smell a little bitter. The vinegar was universally hated. The kids made awesome funny faces when they smelled it.
After I had closed up shop, Pumpkin and Zucchini asked if they could check out the smelling tubs (Zucchini has to spend a lot of time in the writing center each day writing people letters for their mailboxes, and Pumpkin loves the Kid K’nex we have in the block corner right now), so I said yes.
They both loved the vinegar.
“Really?!” I asked. “Are you sure? You like it?”
“Yeah!” they said, grinning. Two little thumbs up. “That smells good.”
Elbows, knees, dreams 
We reviewed the 5 senses this week. ” seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling and my fav sleeping ” Yikes !
have you ever made popcorn in an air popper? It’s a great way to include all 5 senses. I usually do this at the end of our week when we study the 5 senses. They can hear it popping, smell it, see it popping touch it and taste it.
Our chef makes the children “spicy water” at snack time, to combine smell and taste.
I love the expressions when we try water with ginger, water with lemon, water with strawberry…and we’ve had interesting discussions on why it looks the same but tastes so different.
Ha – awesome
I love the smell of vinegar too!
We do a sounds quiz with the class next door. When talking about “hearing”, we record sounds in the classroom and the other class have to identify them. In Rainbows my daughter had a visit from a blind lady with her guide dog; I think this would be a great idea for when we’re next doing senses!