{"id":21,"date":"2013-08-20T07:03:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T14:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2013-08-20T07:04:23","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T14:04:23","slug":"just-a-smell-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/?p=21","title":{"rendered":"Just a Smell Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

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While I walked my dogs this morning as the sun was rising, I passed by a grass yard that had just been watered. Grass is not very common in my neighborhood in Arizona, but it’s a welcome pop of color amid the flat, bland colored stone that’s styled after desert landscape (or, as many people call them, rock yards). \u00a0As we passed by, the smell of grass briefly filled my nose and I was instantly flooded with memories of my childhood, specifically of when my family lived in Kansas for a couple of years. There, every yard was grass. My brothers and I would play with our friends, often running across several backyards to each other’s houses.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0the walk, and\u00a0trip down memory lane, ended, I remembered an article about the connection between\u00a0smell and memory<\/a>. Smell is a powerful sense and often triggers emotions in us. Some scents relax us, some excite, and others overwhelm. Have you ever walked into your grandma’s kitchen and smelled her\u00a0chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven, and no matter how long it has been, every time you\u00a0smell<\/a>\u00a0her cookies you get ‘that feeling’?<\/p>\n

What smells from childhood do you have positive connections with, play dough, pine needles, mud, wood from your tree house? Scents that occur naturally are a wise and easy choice for play experiences. There is no need to feel pressure to make things ‘smell nice’. There is nothing wrong with adding Kool-Aid to\u00a0homemade play dough<\/a>\u00a0for color and smell, but why not start simple? For example, by starting with plain play dough, children can use their senses to explore texture, weight, size, cause and effect, sound, and of course, smell.\u00a0By adding a\u00a0scent on\u00a0a later occasion\u00a0you give them a whole new experience to process, which extends learning and helps children build on what they already know.\u00a0\u00a0What smells are your children making memories with?<\/p>\n

I think I’ll revisit memory lane\u00a0again\u00a0tomorrow morning. It’s just a smell away.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I walked my dogs this morning as the sun was rising, I passed by a grass yard that had just been watered. Grass is not very common in my neighborhood in Arizona, but it’s a welcome pop of color … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackberryhideout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}