Smells are evocative and when connected to learning, can be a powerful tool! Our olfactory sense is perhaps the most obscure of all the senses and yet it still carries weight and worth. My own children often speak about smells they associate with certain things: like the smell of eucalyptus trees on our bushwalks in the Blue Mountains National Parks, the smell of the saltiness of the sea on trips exploring rock pools on holidays or the smell of the caramel sauce we used to make to put over popcorn when they were little. They recall the smell of freshly baked scrolls when one of the kids tried out a new recipe in the kitchen. They remember the smell of freshly mown grass as we read aloud under the trees in our backyard. Yes, you could technically conclude that all of these smells are just things they are associating learning with but what’s the harm in that? They have created memories around truly wonderful learning experiences and that to me is important.
Examples of How To:
How can you consider using the sense of smell in your child’s learning journey? Embrace the smell of each season. Light special scented candles in autumn. Gather around a crackling fire with some hot chocolate mugs and a read-aloud in winter. Pick fresh flowers for your learning table in Spring. Enjoy a fresh mocktail with some sweet smelling strawberries in the cool inside as you work through your kiddo’s spelling lists.
Other ideas to incorporate smells into learning are using scented playdough or cloud dough. My daughter always remembers the cloud dough we made using a cheap apple hair conditioner: this is still one of her favourite childhood memories! The British Psychologist Society suggests that chewing gum can help us focus as we learn. Why not utilize that information by having your child associate a smell of gum with a good learning habit like writing or reading tasks?
Purchase some scented markers or scented stickers for your child to play with. See if any in particular have an effect on your child. My daughter loves journaling with her ‘smelly’ markers and they really do seem to encourage her to concentrate and connect with the work she is doing when she uses them.
For your smell-seeking kiddos, why not try out these Outschool Classes?
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DIY Holiday, Gift & Decor Aromatic Orange and Clove Pomanders
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Food Science: Make Your Own Candy Canes (Better Than Store Bought!
How Outschool Can Help
Outschool is your go-to resource for unschooling and online home education programs. Whether your child is passionate about foreign languages or computer coding and anime, we’ve got a course for them. Outschool makes it easy with more than 140,000 affordable online classes to supplement your Unschooling home education program. Your kids can dig into a variety of subjects including Anime, Roblox, Dance, Creative Writing, Acting, Music, Drawing, Science, Nature, Video Game Design and thousands more!
