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Helping adults prepare children for kindergarten and life.

SMELL

Creating paint colors that smell good

Month 9 · Activity 10 ·   Senses  

Instructions

  • You will need 3 or more dry mix beverage packages (Kool-aid, Crystal Light, etc.) and white glue
  • Combine each dry drink mix with glue in three different containers and blend until the consistency of paint
  • Paint on white paper plates with the mixture encouraging the child to notice the smell of the paint 

Try this 

  • add to your playdough a few drops of essential oils or perfume to help the child understand their sense of smell

Simplify

Encourage the child to smell the packet of mix and guess what flavor.  After the "paint" is mixed, let the child match the paint smell to the correct beverage package.

Chat about the role our sense of smell can help us: alert us to danger like fire or rotten food; how we need our sense of smell for our sense of taste to work well, etc. 

Click here for a short video about the sense of smell

Extend

Here are some basic smells to introduce:

Sweet (for example chocolate)

Minty/peppermint ( for example eucalyptus)

Fragrant (for example perfumes)

Woody (for example pine)

Fruity (for example apple)

Chemical (for example bleach)

Citrus (for example lemon)

QUESTIONS FOR CHILD

What are your three favorite smells?

Can you name three smells you don't like?

Materials

  • Language Skills
  • Math & Science Skills
  • Motor Skills