Our senses allow us to enjoy our food, the sound of music, the beauty of a sunny day, the softness of a child’s hair — in short, our lives! We rely on our five senses to provide information about the world around us.

Just the thought of a special holiday dinner brings to mind many observations made through the senses — the smell of dinner cooking, the sound of holiday music, the taste of freshly baked cookies, and more. Children may recognize the importance of their senses, but they don’t often focus on them individually.

With the help of a few activities, your little one learned how to identify their senses and put them to use in the classroom. For this activity, we talked about our sense of smell with these special sniffing jars! Using only their noses, students sniffed the contents of four different jars, guessing their contents.

In one jar was lavender oil, in another was orange extract, in another was vanilla extract, and lastly, was cacao powder. Your little ones enjoyed sniffing and then re-sniffing the different jars, guessing at what was in them, and having fun while doing so!