Michael learns about the sense of smell

 Learning about the sense of smell


Michael is learning about his senses.  We are working on the sense of smell and so I put together a game for Michael.  I found these really cool jars for a dollar and filled them with scents for Michael to match.  I used spices of Cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and cloves that were very strong.

 Here are the jars that I placed in a box for him to carry.

 We took them out and placed them on a tray to examine them.  Michael pulled the corks off and peered inside.  He was really interested so we spread them out on the floor and examined each glass jar more closely.









Michael was excited and took them out and lined them on the floor.    He lifted them up to try to see which matched but they were very similar in colors and hard to use his sense of sight.  I told him he had to smell them to try to figure out which two matched.

 Michael lifted them to his nose and smelled deeply.  He picked up each one and tried to match the scents.
It was a new experience for him and was hard for him to pick the ones that were similar with just his sense of smell.  He found it amusing but also difficult to use just his sense of smell.  He kept looking at the jars to see if he could figure out by his sight.  We really do use our eyes for most of our sensorial experiences.

After a while he pointed to the ones he thought went together.  We opened them all up and matched them together with the scents and then also with the added sense of sight.  We looked at the textures of each and
noted which ones looked more similar and then using our sense of smell we matched them up.

Michael spent a lot of time organizing the jars.  He lined them up.  He spent time working on getting the corks off the tops and matching the pairs.  The jars were perfect for his hands and he spent a lot of time shaking them, smelling them, holding them up to look at the contents.

I like to find interesting ways for Michael to explore his world.  He is learning about his senses and how to use each sense to figure out more of the world we live in.

 There are so many things to discover.  I would like to fill a bag up with items for him to identify with just the sense of touch for our next activity.


 The world that Michael lives in really fascinates him and he has a strong curiosity to know the ways of things.  I want to cultivate this sense of wonder and excitement in him for as long as I am able to.  The joy that he give me makes my moments so precious.  I am so thankful to have him in my life.