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Young children will love The Sweet Smell of Christmas lesson plan complete with a sensory activity, graphing practice, and writing prompt for PreK-1!
In the story The Sweet Smell of Christmas, we meet a little bear who is exploring all the smells that come along with the holiday season. Enjoy this book with your kids, and then enjoy the following book-based activities that will help them better understand the text.
Not only will they have fun doing these activities, but you will love that they are educationally based!
Head to Amazon or your local bookstore to snag The Sweet Smell of Christmas, and then give these fun book- based activities a try!
The Sweet Smell of Christmas Lesson Plan
These book-based activities will help extend the text in a meaningful way, and keep the kids engaged after the story is over.
Smells of Christmas Sensory Cups Activity
Just like the bear in this story, your children can enjoy all the smells of the holiday season right in their own home.
What You’ll Need
paper cupcake liners | fresh pine needles | chocolate chips | peppermint candies
apple spice powder | cinnamon | small orange | ground cloves
What You’ll Do
First, enjoy the story with your child. They will enjoy using the scratch and sniff stickers as they explore and smell the items the little bear is sniffing.
Line up an assortment of cupcake liners. You will fill the cup with the items that the bear sniffs in the books. This includes fresh pine, chocolate, peppermint candies, apple spice, cinnamon, and an orange.
You can also include other holiday scents such as cloves, pumpkin spice, and other scents that come to mind.
Put one ingredient in each cup. Invite children to fill each cup and take turns sniffing the scents.
Once they’ve explored the scents, see if they can close their eyes and guess the scent that is put under their noses!
Repeat and enjoy the sensory experience as much as you wish! You can talk about how you feel about each scent and which ones are your favorites.
MORE LEARNING ACTIVITIES
#1 Creating a Graph
So, which holiday scent is the most popular in your house or in your classroom? When you create a graph based on the information you collect, you can find this answer fast!
Supplies needed:
– the scent samples used above
– piece of white construction paper
– marker
Directions:
Begin by creating a column for each of the scents you used in the sensory cups.
Place the cups on a tray. Present them to 5-10 people and let them smell the cups.
Ask them to pick their favorite. Write down the data you collect.
Once you have collected the information, you can create a graph. Next to each scent, show the number of people who that it was the best/most pleasing scent. You can choose to show your data via a tally cart, a pie chart, or a bar graph.
Share the data and show your findings. If you wish to take this a step further, you can then collect information on the scent that people liked the least.
#2 Writing Prompt: What Smells Remind Us of Christmas?
Take some time to talk about and write about the scents that remind us of Christmas. This is a great time to talk about how scent evokes memory!
Supplies needed:
– writing paper
– pen or pencil
– crayons
Directions:
Start by talking about how scent can evoke memory. What are some scents that make you think of Christmas? Brainstorm. Ideas can include the ones we read about in the book, but thing about other examples such as the scent of turkey, fresh bread, baked cookies, cinnamon rolls, and other scents that are meaningful to you.
Spend 15 minutes writing about which scents remind you of Christmas and why. See if you can come up with 2-3 scents and describe how they make you think of the holidays.
When you are done with the prompt, draw a quick illustration using crayons. Take the time to share your prompts with each other.
Are you ready to explore the scents of the holiday season? Be sure to check out this beautiful book with your child. Then, give these follow up educational activities a try!
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