A spicy work of art

I checked a website called Learn with Play @ Home, they presented a sensory activity via painting using spices and seasoning. I wanted to try this activity as soon as I read it as I thought the idea was very creative. I love spices and the smell of it is just simply divine, thus I reckoned this experiment would smell great :)).!!!  The link for the website is the following: 

http://www.learnwithplayathome.com/2012/08/painting-with-seasoning-and-spices.html

I used 8 types of spices: curry, cinnamon, mustard, cumin, nutmeg, paprika, turmeric and chilli powder.  As well as an egg carton, paint brush and water.

Before pouring the spices onto the container I asked my son a number questions: What are these products? What do we normally cook with it? He already knew that we use these products for cooking, for example curry, because we try to engage him in many of the activities that we do in an outside the house. My son is very observant and curious, he religiously asks the name of things and will pursue by using as many of the words he can find albeit English or Portuguese in the sentence to receive an answer. Moreover, when I am cooking it is not any different, he wants to know the name of all the foodstuffs, utensils and products :)).

Each time he placed spices onto the egg carton I would ask him to smell it and tell me what the is the smell. For most of the spices he said it smelled spicy :))), and the smell of paprika was better than the other spices, with regards to mustard he said that it was not spicy and it smelled like sand. He liked the smell of cinnamon, he said that it was sweet. When we finished putting the spices onto the container, he said that the colours looked very beautiful. We put one teaspoon of each powder. 

 Furthermore we poured a little bit of water into each powder and stirred.

My son started painting.

The image below was his first painting, he said that it was an erupted volcano. 

In the following picture he said that it was me by a tree :))); cute!!!!!

The following is a pirate ship and a bird flying :).

He said that the next picture was a dragon in a forest :).

I love the colours of his paintings, and the smell in the kitchen was just wonderful :))). My son enjoys cooking with us and therefore I did not have any problem with him putting his finger in his mouth as he knew it would be quite spicy. Nevertheless, in the event you do this activity with your little one make sure s/he washes there hands afterwards. A great and inexpensive sensory artwork this is which I highly recommend.