Smelling Bottles

I got this idea from Montessori. They have an activity called smelling bottles. You can either have the bottles and match them to control cards or you can have 2 sets of bottles. With 2 sets of bottles you have the option of blindfolding your child and see if they can find the scents that smell the same. Here's what you need:
*empty baby food jars, washed
*hammer and a nail
*cotton balls
*miscellaneous extracts (cherry, mint, lemon, banana, cinnamon, orange, ect.)
*stock card

Put the lids on the baby food jars and hammer 5 or so holes in the top.


Then take the lids back off. Next get your cotton balls and put a few drops of extract on each cotton ball and put these in the jar. I just #3 baby food jars and they were a little too big so I used 3 cotton balls in each. Put the lids back on tightly so your child can't get them off. Then you can either print out a picture of the fruit or whatever scent matches the bottles or draw them on card stock. I wrote the word on them too. I would suggest laminating these. You might need to go through them and let your child smell the bottles and tell them what is in it. Since they might not know what coconut or root beer smells like. I have found at least 10 different scents. You could experiment with other things in the bottle like dirt or something other than food extracts. I would suggest covering the bottles with black paper. My daughter automatically sees what color is on the cotton ball and knows which card it goes with. You want them to use their sense of smell.