Scent matching game...

 We played a scent/smell matching game today.  This was a lot of fun for the kids, and super-easy to make.

I found this little case at the craft store.  With a 50% off coupon, it came to just a few dollars.  

Inside the little case are 12 small plastic bottles with screw-on caps. 

I picked six items from our spice rack, and filled two of the small bottles with each spice.  You can use nearly anything, just try to stick to distinctive smells so it's less confusing.  I used: 2 bottles of cinnamon, 2 bottles of ginger, 2 bottle of ground coffee, 2 bottles with a cotton ball with a drop of vanilla extract on it, 2 bottles of lemon zest, and 2 bottles of pepper. 

When we played, I sorted the bottles so that one of each scent was on each side.  On the right side, we left all 6 jars open.  On the left side, I opened one jar at a time.  I played with Princess first.  I blindfolded her (because she's old enough to match by sight instead of smell, blindfolding was better for her), and lifted the first open jar from the left for her to smell.  I then went down the line of jars on the right, holding each one to her nose, and when she found the one it matched, she told me.  

After we found the match, we closed those bottles.  This made each subsequent smell easier to match, which she wanted. 

When she was done, she took off the blindfold and flipped the bottles over.  I'd used six colors of markers to do matching dots on each pair, so that she'd be able to see if she'd found the matching smell by seeing if the dots matched.