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Smelling Games for Kids

People tend to use their eyes to identify objects and other people by sight, and unless a strong aroma is in the air, the sense of smell often goes unnoticed. Kids, who often enjoy experimenting with all of their senses, sometimes enjoy playing games that include identification through smell. These games often require blindfolds, which heighten the effect of the smell and reduce the effect of the other senses.

Tracking Dog
- In Tracking Dog, a child harnesses the power of the nose and get into the mindset of a police tracking dog. For this game, choose a food that has a strong aroma, such as a bowl of freshly-popped hot popcorn. Hide the food at floor level somewhere in the house and blindfold the child. On all fours, the child searches for the popcorn using only his nose as a guide. Other strong smelling foods to use include hot apple pie and vinegar fries.
People Smell
- Although the scent of a person is not usually one of the first things another person notices, a kid might be interested to find out if he can identify his friends by scent alone. Each child should take a turn blindfolded. The other children stand in front of the blindfolded child and the player smells each one and calls out the name. All the kids take a turn and the winner is the person who identifies the most friends correctly.
Food
- A picky eater may be encouraged to eat a wider variety of food with a food scent test. Place 10 different foods on a table and blindfold two or more children. The kids then move around the table, smelling each food and attempting to identify it. The winner of the identification game gets first choice of the foods on the table.
Scent Association
- Kids can test their memories with a scent association game. Blindfold two or more kids and let them smell a distinctive scent such as vanilla. The leader of the game then does something unrelated to the scent, such as give the kids a carrot or tap on the head. Repeat this with five different scents and five different actions. Then, let them smell the scents again randomly, and have them shout out the correlating action.

Kids Games