Do a ‘smell’ study. Put the following samples into small yogurt cups (or any small cup that you have.)

Chocolate syrup
Toothpaste or Mint extract
Mustard
Ketchup
Peanut Butter
Lemon slice or lemon juice
Pickle Juice
Vanilla Extract

Next tie a loose blindfold over your child’s eyes and ask them to use their sense of smell to tell you what is in the container.

My 4 year old guessed them all. My 3 year old needed some clues and still missed a few. So we smelled them all again with the blindfold off. Then we drew a picture of what we did on a piece of paper. When asked to describe their pictures they described the following. My son (4 yrs) drew a picture of his nose (with nostril) and ‘smell’ molecules going into his nose from a cup that a hand was holding. The ‘smell’ molecules were from the vanilla. My daughter (3yrs) drew a picture a hand holding a cup and inside the cup was mustard.

The whole experiment including follow-up took about 1/2 hour but it excited the children so much to be ‘real scientists’. Try it today with your little ones!

Coda 4yrs:

Braelie 3yrs: