5 Short Activities: Adventure for Your Nose, Tastebuds, and Hands
Ages: +8
Time: 30 minutes- 1 hour depending on the activity
Learning Objectives:
Students will learn how to use their senses to problem solve and navigate in the world
Students will learn to use all senses to inspire writing
Curricular Connections: KS3, MYP, Fun, STEM, Empathy, Communication, Self-knowledge
Activity #1 Smelly Journal
Materials: piece of paper/journal, writing utensil
For one day (or a portion of a day for younger students, such as six hours) students pay attention to all smells they are able to distinguish. Instruct students to write down every smell they encounter. The next day, students compare lists. Discuss what factual data each smell provides as well as any memories or emotions associated with it. On a smaller scale, the activity above can be used with a walking tour around the school.
Activity #2 Smelling Bee
Materials: cotton balls, various liquid (vanilla extract, tea, juice, etc)
Hold a “Smelling Bee.” Using the rules of a spelling bee, students compete by correctly identifying a variety of odors. One way to do this is by putting liquids on cotton balls. Another way is to put the objects in identical opaque containers and pierce holes in the lid.
Activity #3 A Tale Of Many Smells
Materials: piece of paper/journal, writing utensil
Using scent samples like those created for the “Smelling Bee” students identify the item by smell, decide how it smells to them (pleasant, bad, neutral, strong, etc.), and write a story associated with the scent, either a memory associated with it or a work of fiction.
Activity #4 Tastes Like Fun
Materials: various edible items, blindfold
Explore the connections between vision, smell, and taste by conducting blind taste-tests of the edible products you are using and see if students can identify them correctly.
Suggestions for experiments with the sense of smell: dried herbs, spices (like ginger and cinnamon), coffee, onion, cocoa powder, baking extracts (like vanilla and almond), garlic, banana, mothballs, orange juice, fruit peels, piece of apple, vinegar, perfume, shampoo, cedar, mint, sawdust, air freshener sprays, baby powder, flowers, dirt, pine needles, peanut butter, bubble gum.
Activity #5 Shake, Shake, Shake
Materials: none
Three participants line up. One by one, each person says his or her name while shaking hands with the sixth participant who is blindfolded. Then the five people quietly rearrange their order. The person who is blindfolded shakes their hands again and tries to guess the identity of each person based only on feeling their hands.