Sue Gascoyne explores learning opportunities for babies linked to sensory play – focusing on smell and taste…
We understand the need to nurture and nourish children’s bodies and brains with love, nutritious food and physical movement. However, we rarely consider the importance of providing sensory play and stimulation.
Our senses are the gateway for all learning. However, most of us think only of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
We ignore the vital inner senses:
These are all critical to babies achieving those all-important milestones that we delight in.
Let’s look at the senses of smell and taste. These are so closely related that food tastes nondescript and bland when we have a cold.
The sense of smell is one of the most developed senses at birth. Even newborn babies are able to recognise the smell of their mother’s milk.
Smell is closely linked to the oldest limbic part of the brain. This perhaps explains how some smells can transport us back to our childhood.
A nose typically contains about 10 million smell receptors, each responsible for detecting one of 20 different types of smell.
Yet this is probably one of our most underused senses. After all, air fresheners and modern conveniences remove many of the smells prevalent in previous generations.
Much of what we consider to be taste is actually feedback from smell and touch, as texture is also a key aspect of taste.
Newborn babies can discriminate between pleasant sweet and unpleasant sour tastes when just a few hours old. This is remarkable given that they have never even ‘eaten’ food.
As with smell this probably originates from our ancestors’ survival tactics, with sour tastes associated with poison and danger.
If you’d like to offer your babies a sensory-rich ‘diet’ then here are some simple sensory play activities to try.
If you already enjoy activities like these but have never thought about their sensory dimension, try to focus on lesser-stimulated senses.
Gather some clean odd socks or mini organza bags, plus cotton wool pads. After checking for allergies, gather smelly items like:
Put a little of each smelly item in a sock or bag, or add a drop to the cotton wool. Tie securely and offer to babies to smell.
Introduce each smell individually to avoid sensory overload and to understand more about children’s likes and dislikes.
Gently stroke their legs, toes or arms, letting the smell slowly waft to their nose.
Watch closely to see their reaction and talk about each smell as they explore. For example, say “Mmm, that vanilla smells lovely”, or “Aargh, that coffee is pongy.”
Next time you’re offering resources for messy play, think about whether you can safely add a smell dimension for babies to discover as they touch and explore.
For weaning babies, every new food encountered is a sensory adventure. Offer them a range to experience (one at a time, initially) to maximise sensory interest.
After checking for allergies, cut up different types of fruit for children to taste. Try to include some exotic as well as common fruits. Offer the whole fruit to see and feel as well as bite-sized pieces to taste.
Talk about the taste, what type of fruit it is, whether they like it and where it grows. This helps increase the brain connections associated with each taste and fruit.
Sue Gascoyne is an early years researcher, educational consultant, trainer and the author of Treasure Baskets and Beyond – Realizing the Potential of Sensory-Rich Play.
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