L is slightly obsessed with Frozen, and her favorite line is when Elsa and Anna sniff and say, “mmm, chocolate!” She says it almost every day, and she thinks she’s absolutely hilarious. I kind of do, too. 🙂
Anyway, it led me to follow the child and create a smelling work for her so she can experience and learn to name different scents.
Every part of this work is made of something I already had at home! I had a spice rack that had really seen better days [it was at least 10 years old!], so I decided to ditch the spices and repurpose the jars in this smelling jar work. I cleaned them out and put a cotton ball in each one. I then put a couple drops of different extracts from my pantry on each cotton ball — I used lemon, coconut, vanilla, coffee, and mint extracts. I also labeled each jar so I could know what she was smelling to help her describe the scents. L loves smelling each jar and trying to name the correct scent! It’s a great sensorial experience and helps build language skills as we talk about each scent.
[I really wanted to put chocolate extract in one of the smelling jars so I could see her reaction when she got to say, “mmm, chocolate” just like Elsa and Anna, but I couldn’t find any in my grocery store. 🙁 ]