Sensory development refers to our five senses which allows children to explore the world around them through seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, tasting, & smelling. During early childhood, children learn best and process new information through experiences that engage their senses. Since they crave sensory inputs in order to make sense of the world around them, incorporating a variety of ways to use their five senses can enhance a child's brain development & cognitive growth. As a child is exploring and learning about the world around them using their five senses helps the child know more about their body, explore how they are able to control their body parts, while acquiring vocabulary to describe how things look, hear, taste, feel or sound.
Today we invited the children to create scented paint while exploring their sense of smell. We set up empty paint cups with white tempera paint, provided an array of spices (cinnamon, garlic, basil, onion, turmeric, cayenne) as well as expired berry & orange jello mix. We passed around each container, asked them to smell each one, and described what they experienced. Next they poured the spices into the white paint & made their own scented paint. Once their mixtures were ready they began to freely paint.
The sense of smell is called Olfaction. We smell in two ways: by breathing in through our nostrils & also through the back of our nose from our mouth. Our sense of smell helps us detect hazards, food, pheromones, associations, feelings, & memory. Experiences of exploring the the sense of smell such as this can aid a child to develop stronger social emotional regulation skills, memory association, speech, language and cognitive development.
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