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Sensory Smell Games for Children

Did you know the world has more astronauts than perfumers? There are only about 100 perfumers in the world and last week I got to meet one of them. Kate Willams is the perfumer for Imperial Leather and she is passionate about fragrance. I was invited to meet her at the Imperial Leather Innovation Centre and to find out more about their SkinKind range of products.

Imperial Leather are experts in fragrance and they’ve used their knowledge to develop the SkinKind shower gels, which smell lovely but are still hypoallergenic. The SkinKind range is available in three allergen-free fragrances and have been designed to be kind to even very sensitive skins.  It was fascinating to talk with Kate and find out about her job. She talked about how designing a new perfume is a very creative process and how inspiration can come from anywhere: a flower she smells, a sculpture she sees, even a handbag she notices.

This got me thinking about children and their sense of smell. We often use textures and sound in sensory play but how often do you encourage kids to explore fragrance? We always smell ingredients when we’re cooking and I’ve blogged before about aromatherapy pots for babies but today, inspired by Kate, I’ve been playing a sensory smell game with the girls.

I took a few pieces of card (all the same colour so there were no sight clues) and rubbed something smelly on each one: a lemon, an onion, a garlic bulb, a strawberry. I sprayed perfume on the last one and then cut each card in half.  All the cards were jumbled up and placed out on the table. Could the girls sniff out the pairs of cards which matched together? Why not try the game with your children and see how you get on? You never know you could have a junior perfumer in the making!

Warm, sunny weather gives a great opportunity to take your play outside. How about some outdoor painting? Even if you’re usually reluctant to let the kids do messy play indoors, when you’re outside you can relax a little and let them get creative.

We used a wipe-able tablecloth to give the floor some protection and used washable paint. It was too hot to get wrapped up in coveralls so we wore old clothes. The plant pots did a great job holding our big roll of parcel paper in place. We had a washing up bowl full of water and a tea towel handy – good for washing off our feet!

We experimented with big brushes, washing-up scrubbers and the rake from the sandpit.

This was an ‘open-ended’ craft session where the kids had the opportunity to use the paint their way, rather than us making anything in particular.  Little especially enjoyed using her hands and feet to paint with and Big experimented with some splatter painting.

Why not try this with your children and see what they create?

Happily shared with…

Sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be just the most fun. Little asked if she could do the washing up yesterday ‘like a grown-up’. Two minutes to set up, all for free, and it kept her busy for an hour. I think she enjoyed it so much because she was using ‘real’ adult things rather than ‘toys’: washing up liquid, our washing up bowl and one of ‘Mummy’s’ scrubbing pads.

As you can see we set her up outside so there was no need to worry about any splashes. However this has turned out to be so much fun, she’s been playing again today when it’s been rather chilly so she’s been in the kitchen. I put a big bath towel on the floor as a precautionary measure but she’s been very grown up and sensible so there’s hardly any spills.

I only wish I still found doing the dishes so much fun.

For more inspiring ideas come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up.

How do you feel about mess? Do you let your children have free rein around the house to play with what they like? To pull all the cushions of the sofa to make a boat? To use all their bedsheets to build a den? To take pasta from the kitchen cupboards to use in their pretend kitchen?

And how do you feel about them playing in the garden? Do you let them dig? Make mud pies? Pick up worms? Fill the watering cans to make a swamp? Pick leaves and flowers to ‘bake’ with?

Do you give them messy materials to play with? Play dough? Paint? Felt tip pens? Sand? Glitter?

Someone told me recently that they’d never let their children play with playdough. And someone else commented that they spend so much time cleaning already that they don’t want to encourage their kids to make even more mess. This got me wondering how everyone else views messy play. I wonder if you encourage this kind of play at home or do you keep it just for pre-school? Do you let babies and toddlers get stuck in or do you reserve it for your older children? Do you think messy play is beneficial or educational or just for fun? And what do your children think about messy play – do they love it or loathe it?

I’m not looking to criticise anyone’s approach, I’m just genuinely interested to see what the opinion is on messy play. Will you share your thoughts and tell me what you think?

Here’s a recipe for homemade vanilla-scented playdough in pretty ice-cream shades – together with some play ideas to encourage your kids to explore and learn.

Playdough is such a wonderful material for chidren to explore as there are so many ways for them to play with it. It’s an open-ended activity so it allows them to use their imagination and be creative with what they make. It’s very good when there’s a mixed age group of children playing as they can all join in a way that suits their age and interests. It promotes language development too if you’re sat chatting about what you’re making or co-operating over sharing materials.

You can add in other resources from time to time to spark ideas for new ways to play – maybe provide some matchsticks, lollypop sticks, cake cases, bottletops or feathers. You can also use a change of location to extend the play possibilities. It’s not a very messy substance, and cleans up fairly easily if you don’t leave it to harden. (Best on hard surfaces rather than carpet though.) It would be interesting to watch how your children use playdough in the garden, in the toy kitchen or in the dolls house.

I’ve been using this family recipe to make playdough for a while but a recent post by Jen over at the The Mad House suggested using essential oils in the mixture to add scent. I loved this idea but as  I wasn’t completely sure the children playing here would keep the dough out of their mouths I’ve used vanilla essence here instead. The addition of natural food colourings produces lovely ice cream-like shades which I much prefer to the lurid shop bought colours. I also like the texture of homemade playdough and it’s so cheap and easy to make. Give it a try and I think you’ll be making your own from now on.

Here’s the recipe – using a measuring jug instead of weighing scales to make it easy.

Warm 750ml of water in a large pan. Add 375 ml of salt, 750ml of flour, 45ml of sunflower oil, 30ml of cream of tartar and 10ml of vanilla essence.

Stir the ingredients together over a low heat. Use a whisk at first to get rid of any lumps and then a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.

Remove the pan from the heat and tip the dough into a large bowl. (If you want to make several different colours you can split the dough into separate bowls at this stage and add a different colour to each bowl. )

Add a few drops of food colouring and knead for a couple of minutes until the colour is evenly spread through the dough.

Let it cool a little and then it’s ready to play with. Store in an air-tight jar and it should last for at least a couple of months.

Happily shared with Today’s Creative Blog

and Mom Tried It and Life as a Mom

WeareTHATfamily’s Works for me Wednesday

This is a very simple idea to include even the youngest child in the Valentine fun.

When I saw this heart shaped ‘Love Pasta’ I knew I had to have some! (Guess what we’re having for dinner on 14th?) And I’d also been thinking about how to include a baby I know in the Valentine celebrations as she’s too young for any chocolate treats or to get involved in the other crafts we’re doing. One thing she is fantastic at however is making noise! She’s really enjoying finding her own voice and also trying out what sounds she can make by banging toys around, which gave me the idea of making her a musical shaker with a sprinkle of hearts inside.

It’s pretty much the easiest thing to make:

Take a clean, empty drinks bottle.

Fill with something to make noise when baby shakes it. I used the Love Pasta, but you could use dry kidney or borlotti beans (which keeps with the colour scheme) or rice or whatever else you might have in your storecupboard.

Add something to catch baby’s eye. I used some heart shaped foil confetti and some swirls of red shiny ribbon.

Fix the lid on tightly. I applied superglue around the rim of the bottle and them screwed the lid on top. I added a ribbon around the neck of the bottle, but if you’re concerned about baby chewing this you can leave it off.

Hand the bottle over to baby and let them shake away to their hearts content.

This post is happily shared with Today’s Creative Blog Get Your Craft On. Why not pop over to find lots more great craft ideas?

Messy play is a wonderful way for children to explore their senses and there are lots of materials you can use. With younger children you must always be aware of course that whatever they are playing with is guaranteed to end up in their mouths – so shaving foam or playdough is no good for the littlies. Children explore so much with their mouths that there’s no point trying to stop them, but instead you can provide a material that it’s safe for them to use. So what better than some jelly!

You can easily get hold of jelly which is made with natural food colouring. With babies you can start with just one colour. I usually pop on a cover-all bib and sit them in their highchair at the table. I put a mound of  jelly on the highchair’s tray and then let them go for it. Watch them poke, squish and taste. Chat to them while they play and give them new words to try like wobble and squash. You could sing ‘Jelly on a Plate’ while you play.

With toddlers and pre-schoolers you can use 2 or 3 different colours of jelly and see what happens when you mix them together. This is a fun first lesson in colour combining, as you watch red and yellow jelly turn into orange. Let the children help you prepare the jelly so they can observe how it changes from solid to liquid and back to solid again.

Sometimes children can be reluctant to try new sensory experiences and may not want to touch the jelly. To overcome this and encourage them to experiment you could have a jelly lucky dip by hiding a few tempting treasures at the botton of a bowl of jelly for them to fish out.

You can also add props such as pans, plates and spoons to role play a kitchen or cafe. Spooning the jelly out onto plates is good hand-eye co-ordination practice.

This post is happily shared with weareTHATfamily in the Works For Me Wednesday carnival.

Around the time your baby learns how to sit upright by themself, they can discover a fascination for putting objects in and out of pots and boxes. They’re developing lots of skills when they do this.

Firstly they’re using their fine motor skills to actually hold objects, and may be passing them from one hand to another. They have to have good hand-eye co-ordination if they are to negotiate the object inside of the pot their aiming for.

Providing pots of different sizes challenges them to experiment with size and volume as they see which toys fit inside each one.

As they get older you can extend their play by adding lids or turing the pots upside down and hiding objects underneath. Hiding and discovering the toys inside helps them to grasp the concept of object permanence – the idea that things still exist even when they can not see them. You can have lots of fun with this by changing the objects you hide inside and sometimes sneaking away the item they’re expecting to see. Rather than teasing them, this actual helps them develop their thinking skills, as they process a result they weren’t expecting.

Another way to add an extra dimension to this play is to use pots which have a fragrance. If you collect together some old tubs from the kitchen which had a smelly content you’ll find they still have an aroma when they’ve been emptied out. Try pots of herbs and spices, custard powder, cocoa and teabag boxes such as Earl Grey or peppermint. Babies have a very developed sense of smell from birth but it’s often a sense which we neglect to nurture as they grow older.

Why not see what you’ve got that your child could explore today?