Sense of Smell (winter version) Lesson Plan

*We have an arboretum here in Seattle that has a "Winter Garden". This specialty garden is full of winter blooming trees, flowers, and bushes. It is incredible at this time of year! Some of my favorite winter blooming trees and plants are hamamelis (witch hazel), sarcococca (sweet box or Christmas box), helleborus (Christmas rose- although it is not part of the rose family), camellia, some early blooming prunus, and my absolute favorite Daphne. If you live in a city that has an arboretum or botanical garden, most likely it will have some wonderful winter-blooming plants. Winter is one of my favorite times to visit a garden. Seeing and smelling flowers in the winter feels like a gift from heaven and really lifts my spirit out of the doldrums of the cold and gray winter. Anyway, here is the lesson plan from last week:

Sense of Smell (winter version)

Letter of the day- N for nose!

What do we use our noses for? To smell! What do you think would happen if we couldn’t smell or we didn’t have a nose? We wouldn’t be able to taste our food very well. Isn’t that weird? Do you remember the last time you had a cold? Did your food taste different? That’s because our nose has cells that work when we eat food and tell our brain what our food tastes like.

Who is happy they have a nose? I sure am! Let’s take a walk and practice using our nose to discover the good smells that we find in nature. If you smell something that you really like, share it with everyone, please :)

Rhyme: (As you walk along, find a place that has some flowers and some dirt. Have the kids take a deep breath of air, then chat the rhyme together. Have the children fill in the blanks with each verse. When you get to the dirt verse, scoop up a handful and have the children get close and smell. They will all have very different ideas about what it smells like! We had kids say "applesauce, toes, stinky, toast, etc). 

The air smells ________

How do I know? 

My nose told my brain, 

So it must be so.
Flowers smell ______
How do I know?
My nose told my brain,
So it must be so.

The dirt smells ______

How do I know?

My nose told my brain, 

So it must be so.



Games:
Smelly cups-
Prep- cut up an egg carton into individual little cups, one cup for each child in your class.
Give each child a egg carton cup. Find an area with a diversity of vegetation. Let them spend a few minutes picking up things from the ground or picking flowers, needles, dirt, leaves, grass, etc. that they find interesting to smell. Have them place a few items in their cup. Call the kid back together and tell them that we are going to play a game where we use our noses. Have the kids stand in a circle. Ask them to close their eyes and when you say “pass”, pass their cup to the left. They smell the cup in front of them for a moment then open their eyes to see what it is. When you say pass, they do it again and again, until all the cups have made it around the entire circle. Let the children talk about what different things they smelled and what they thought about the smells. Were they surprised? Did the smelly cups smell good, stinky, flowery, christmasy, spicy, strong, grassy? What was their favorite smell? 

*note- this ended up panning out a bit differently than I had envisioned. Some of the kids were adamant about holding on to their little cup and did not want to pass it around. We ended up just walking around and smelling one anothers cup rather than passing them


Pretend Play:
Let's act out some animals that are "super smellers!"
-Dogs are super smellers! Have you ever watched a dog smell? How does the dog do it? Let’s pretend to be dogs! Let’s use our noses to tell us about the world around us!”

-Bats are super smellers! Let's fly around catching insects with our good sense of smell.

-Sharks are super smellers! Let's swim around using our sense of smell to catch fish to eat.

-Rats are super smellers! Let's squeak like a rat and use our noses to find some garbage to eat :)

Sensory:
Scented playdough- I made three different scented playdoughs; cinnamon and cloves, rosemary, and peppermint. Give each child a little piece of playdough, let them smell it and play with it. Ask them which each playdough reminds them of. Which do they like the best.



Craft: Scented Flower
Materials:

Cotton balls enough for each child (with perfume or essential oil on each)

Felt flower cut outs

Paper flower cut outs

Floral wire

Directions:

Give each child of of each of the materials. Take the wire and poke through paper and felt, around the cotton ball and back through the felt and paper. Twist to make a stem.