asensesmell

Maintaining my webpages has now become a part-time career for me, and the cost of site maintenance has steadily risen over time. So, if you benefit from this website and would like to see it continue, please purchase "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers," and/or make occasional financial donations where possible to help defer the costs of keeping my site on the internet.

I love this great idea from Jodi M in New York for kicking off the "taste" section of my website:
Baby Foods Versus Other Foods: Hi Stormie. I accidentally came up with an idea for my preschool class while feeding my baby. I thought why not let preschoolers taste baby foods and compare them to what we eat when we're older. So, I took baby food peas and real peas to school for snack, baby food peaches and real ones, and baby food cereals to compare with "older children" cereals. What fun lessons we learned: Do we need teeth to eat baby foods? Can babies eat real peas? Why not? Do the baby peas/peaches taste like the real ones? We also compared the texture and smell of the foods.

From Stormie:
Tasty Fingers: In advance, place several dabs of finger-tasting foods on paper plates. After children have thoroughly washed their hands, have them dip each finger of one hand into a different food. Provide them with cups of water to drink between the tasting of "each finger" so as to remove the former taste from their mouths. This is not only a fun tasting game, it's also a fine motor activity as children must isolate each finger for dipping into the foods. As for the foods, choose ones that will stick to a finger (chocolate sauce, different flavored jellies/jams, catsup, etc). Options might include having "salty finger tasting" on one day and "sweet finger tasting" on another. Or, maybe you want to have a "spice" day where children stick their fingers in water to wet their fingers and then stick them into dry spices or other dry foods. Be aware of any allergies children may have.

Smell:

From Stormie:
Although I'm posting ideas on this page as often as I can, I have reserved my very favorite "senses of taste and smell" activities for my "FOOD AND NUTRITION" booklet (see the "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers" section of my website).

*Have children scoop potpourri from one bowl to another using a tiny spoon (this is also fine motor).
*Cupcake Liner Flowers: Children glue a cupcake liner on paper to represent a flower. They can add stems and leaves made in their own way from collage materials (I also like to make craft sticks available for "stems" that can be colored or painted). Children can color a cotton ball by shaking it in dry tempera (color of their choice) then glue it in the center of the flower. Help them to pull it apart and spray perfume on it. This is also nice for the front of a Mother's Day card next month in May.
*Grouptime Discussion: Talk about good and bad smells: Perfume, flowers, skunk, boiled eggs, pizza, dirty diaper, etc.
*Orange Branches: Children glue cardboard or real twigs on paper to represent a tree branch or trunk. They then glue orange tissue paper "wads" on and around the branch. Help them to add drops of orange extract to the "oranges."
Variations:
--Do a lemon branch.
--Do an entire grove of trees on a mural as a group project.
*Bottles: Begin collecting various sizes of small bottles with lids. Try to get bottles that once had perfume, soap, or another nice smell in it. Rinse them out then return the lids immediately preserving the smells. During your unit on the sense of "smell," put the small bottles in a neat basket and place it in your Science Center. Children can come to the basket, remove the lids, smell the scent, then replace the lids (they get a fine motor activity at the same time, you see). Besides collecting yours, where do you find such bottles? Garage sales and thrift shops, of course ;-)
*Boxes: Do you use bar soaps at your house? Do you make various flavors of Jello? Well, after removing what's inside these and other "good smell" boxes, tape the boxes closed again. Cut small decorative holes in the boxes large enough for smelling. Place "food smells" in your Science Center one day and "clean smells" on another day.
Variation: I may be the only person in the world who always saves all those little bars of soaps from motel rooms! They can be used for so many things in a preschool classroom. In this unit, for example, after you've collected a variety of bars, children can match the smells.
Personal Note: I always feel the need to remind children that there are some things we shouldn't smell because they could make us sick or harm us (ask Mommy/Daddy/teacher if you're not sure).

*Sue shares this great idea that allows children to choose their own stickers according to "smell":
Storing Stickers: Put scratch-and-sniff stickers on the top of film canisters (apple on one, grape on another, etc), then store all the same-smelling stickers inside the corresponding canisters so they don't get old. When the one on top wears out, just stick on a new one.

--------------------------
Reminder from Stormie: If you would like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom ideas (each on a 4 x 6" index card), as well as new ones that I create, you can do so by ordering my "Activity Cards." Click here to check them out.