Working with these kinders during these 5 weeks of programming really showed me just how aware children are of their surroundings. During the second week of programming, the wildfires were in full force by Thursday. I arrived to St. Thérèse, feeling the weight of smoke around me. Before we start the activity, we would always begin by having a conversation about the sense of the week. I started asking questions about smell, and was astonished by their answer. They immediately all yelled “SMOKE!” when I asked what they smell right now. I was taken aback for a second, as I had not expected such young children to be aware of the smoke. I was proven wrong, as they immediately got into a discussion about the smoke. They talked about where it was coming from, and one girl even mentioned that her cough was because of the smoke. Their focus on the smoke bled straight into the activity, as this weeks activity was to create a scent map. While the map was filled with all kinds of scents, it was dominated by pictures of cloudy smoke. Almost every kindergartner drew smoke, with most of them drawing it all along the strip of sticker paper that they were given. I had a surplus of stickers, and not enough room. I then got the idea to have the sticker strips of smoke to be put around the map, and extend outwards as people made places to attach to extend the map. The kinders liked this idea a lot.

At first I found this to be wasteful, and I was about the remind them to be more conscious of how they use materials in the classroom. However as I thought about it more, the more it made sense to me. The smoke was thick, and could be smelt and felt the minute you stepped outside, no matter where you resided in Hamilton. The smoke truly was everywhere, and they children were representing its intensity and range by making very long strips of smoke. It really connected the sense of smell and feeling together, as during the conversation on the carpet the kids mentioned about how thick it felt. The strips of smoke were not wasteful, but rather a purposeful choice to demonstrate both the feeling and smell of smoke. I now wonder what other smells work similarly to smoke, and entrap our neighbourhoods in the same way. How would you make a fleeting smell on the map through the shape and size of the sticker?