A Making Sense of Smell Lesson Plan

Welcome to a Making Sense Lesson Plan, where you can explore our wonderful world with your group of children. In this lesson plan we will be looking at ways in which we can learn about our surroundings through the sense of smell. We will be having fun with singing, stories, arts and crafts and even a few experiements to discover how this one of our five senses is an integral part of our lives. Enjoy with your children a session of fun and creativity on a journey that will make them more aware of themselves and how they belong in this world.

If you would like further lesson plans on the five senses,check out Joanna14 above.

Talk with the children about their sense of smell.

What part of their body do they use?

Make a list together of their favorite smells, such as the ideas in our poll. You could also have a few things, such as flowers for them to smell. Could they identify them with their eyes closed/blindfolded? If you have an outdoor area, take them outside to identify the fresh smell of cut grass or aromas of herbs and flowers blowing in the breeze.

Discuss how good it is to smell our food and prepare us for eating it.

You can sing this to the tune of "Frere Jacques"

What is cooking, what is cooking

Can you smell, can you smell

Is it now ready, is it now ready

Can you tell, can you tell

Ask the children why bodies might smell and show a wash bag with a selection of soaps, bubble bath, toothpaste etc. Discuss how they might use these to wash and care for their bodies to avoid a bad smell.

Sing these verses with the song "Here we go round the mulberry bush."

This is the way we (wash our face x3)

This is the way we wash our face on a cold and frosty morning.

This is the way we brush our hair... wash our hands... clean our teeth...

Use a Scratch and Sniff Book to further their inquisitiveness and sense of smell. You could allow the children to take turns at scratching and sniffing the stickers.

Talk about what a sniffer dog is and how a dogs' sense of smell is much more acute than humans. Just like Guide Dogs, Sniffer Dogs are amazing at helping humans and can detect when someone is ill by the different smell they detect, (e.g. when someone is about to have an epileptic fit).