Strawberry.

As you know if you teach kindergarten or have read here, Bingo is about the most fun and exciting game in the world. There’s something about shouting out ‘Bingo!’ that just motivates kids to focus and learn. We don’t play too often because we don’t want to dull the shine, but today, when we played, we offered an amazing prize… a strawberry scented sticker.

Each winner got to come up and select a strawberry scented sticker. We played ‘Letter/Sound Bingo’ today. The caller gave a letter sound and the players covered the corresponding letter. In addition to the awesome sticker, the winner got to call the next game. We played enough so about half the kids got a sticker.

Every time a winner received their sticker (I always put it on their hand), they’d offer the others at their table a sniff of the prize. What tickled me was how even those who already had their own strawberry scented sticker on their hand wanted a sniff. Was there some different, deeper or richer strawberry smell on the new sticker?

Scented stickers always fascinated me as a kid. They’re not easy to find. The website EverythingSmells.com has some rather cool ones. I keep them in a tightly sealed Zip-Loc bag to keep them fresh and ready. They don’t come out often, but when they do, the room smells like a strawberry field... or hot dogs... or root beer... or pickles. Pick your poison.