When I was pregnant I seemed to have such a heightened sense of smell and have passed that on to Minimad. Maxi has been under the weather lately and noticed that when his nose was blocked foods didn’t taste the same or as strong, so I thought we would explore this.
Firstly we had a look online and discovered this great page at the Childrens University of Manchester all about taste and your nose. The boys had great fun exploring the web site and told me all about it, so we decided to put the theory into practice with some food and drink .
We decided to test, orange juice, apple juice, blackcurrant juice, sugar water, salt water, dilute soy sauce, lemon juice and lime juice. The boys took turns to test one another, blindfolding each other and giving them a taste whilst they held their own noses.
The boys also made a chart so they could write down what each of them through the tastes where and after we sat down and looked at the results and they made their conclusions.
Maxi noted that he could still taste more of the food by just holding his nose than when it was bunged up, so I tried to explain that the mucus that caused his congestion was at the back of his nose and throat too blocking the smell more.
We learned about the five main tastes which are bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and savoury or ‘umami’ and they matched the food they often eat in to the different taste groups.
We also discussed the facts on the infographic we received below from www.otrivine.co.uk. Can you imagine growing 2 meters of nose hair!
Great idea! It’s lovely that they are learning and having fun, perfect! x
Love the info graphic! I love otravine… we suffer with allergies, sinus inflammation and are pretty dependent on it for relief every now and then.
Some really interesting stuff in there. Loving the world record hooters 🙂
Brave little boys! Do you think they will smell their food more often now before it now?
I remember doing something similar to this at school when I was a kid – it was always strange seeing how things work. x
What a fab idea – not thought of doing that before
This sounds like a great activity for me to do over half term – thank you for sharing.
We’ve done this before with food too – it’s a lot harder than it sounds to guess what food you’re eating.
What a fun experiment!
What a great idea to do with older children. I might give this a go with my son!
What a fun experiment to do at home!
Great post! We talk about lot about smell because we cook so often but it would be fun to try this and I don’t think JD knows about the different elements of taste yet. Thanks for sharing. x
Oh that is a truly fabulous infographic. Love how detailed your research was, with the colour coded cups etc…. Sounds like a superb activity and a very organised dedicated Mummy.
Liska x
Great idea! Ugh about 2m of nose hair though!
The record of the longest nose hair was just frightening. But a fun post to read. My little ones still quite young for the experiment but will definitely bare it in mind. Thanks
What a great idea; I imagine they had a great time doing this but they were engaged and learning the whole time too. You are really good at coming up with crafting and activity ideas! Hope you’re having a lovely half term. x
We have some kiddos with some serious sensory issues here, so this kind of sensory training is so perfect for them. Thanks for sharing. Great read!
Renae
How fun. Love the infographic! I learned a lot about nose that I didn’t know before. Thanks for sharing in my STEM Tuesday!