Senses Smell Worksheet

Smell is the sense children notice first and name last, which makes it a good one to slow down and think about. This senses smell worksheet asks 1st Grade students to look at six everyday things and decide which ones carry a strong smell. A bowl of warm popcorn, a bar of soap and a lemon all reach the nose from across a room; a drum, a kite and a mitten do not. Because the six pictures are not sorted by food, by colour or by any other property, a student has to think about the smell itself rather than spot a pattern in the page.

The sheet runs to two pages. Page one carries the Name and Date line, the picture task, and a short writing section: a four-word box and three sentences to finish, so students read a sentence, choose the word that fits and write it on the line at first-grade handwriting size. One word in the box answers nothing, which stops the last blank from being filled by elimination. Page two is the complete answer key. Used as a five-senses lesson opener, a science-center task or a quick check, this first grade science worksheet takes most students about ten minutes.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet, two pages
• 6 original watercolor pictures drawn just for this sheet
• A circle-the-picture task with three correct answers
• A four-word word box with one deliberate distractor
• 3 sentences to finish on solid first-grade writing lines
• A complete answer key on its own page

Why This Helps Kids Learn

• One sense, one job. The whole page stays on smell, so students are not switching between five senses at once and can actually build the idea that each sense gathers a different kind of information.
• The pictures cannot be sorted a second way. The three strong-smelling things are a food, a bathroom item and a fruit, and the three others are toys and clothing, so no shortcut rule gets a student to the right answers.
• Reading and writing come with the science. The word box turns the second half into real sentence work: read the line, pick the one word that fits, and write it legibly on a ruled line.

Ways to Use It

Start with a smell walk. Pass around a lemon, a bar of soap and a bag of popcorn, let students close their eyes and name each one, then hand out the sheet so the pictures already mean something. Ask students to say why the drum and the kite were left out, which is where the real thinking happens. For the writing half, read all three sentences aloud once before anyone writes, and point out that one box word will be left over on purpose. Early finishers can draw a seventh thing with a strong smell on the back and label it. A class set of this senses smell worksheet also pairs neatly with the sight, hearing, touch and taste sheets for a full five-senses unit.

Related Resources

• Senses Touch Worksheet
• Senses Sight Worksheet
• Five Senses Examples Worksheet
• Senses Song