As a very simple exercise, suitable even for the very young (while supervised!) lay out a table with a variety of exotic spices. For pre-school children keep this to 4-5 different spices and for older children you can explore many more. Decide how many spices to lay out depending on your children and your budget! There are dozens of spices you might choose from, but to get you inspired you might consider rosemary, basil, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cumin, turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, star anise, tarragon.
Encourage children to smell, touch and where appropriate to taste these unfamiliar spices. For young children this is a fabulous sensory activity and encourages early language skills.
Place each of your chosen spices upon a table with a naming label to practise reading skills. For older children you may also want to provide each spice with a little map so the children can see (or colour in) where each spice comes from. Let your children have time to explore them!
If you want to extend this activity further you can go on to blindfold your child then have them smell each herb and try to guess which one it is! This is a fun way to focus the senses and encourages self expression and communication skills. Children will also enjoy cooking with some of these spices (see recipes for ideas)!
A whole host of activities can then be based around this spice table if you wish to take it a step further.
Spices can be linked into deities (for example cinnamon is sacred to Dionysus) and the children can be told/read the deities stories then go in to illustrate the stories themselves, or you can cut the stories into sections and have your child rearrange them back into the correct order.
Spices can also linked to their country of origin and provide an opportunity to learn about other places. Give your child access to images of the country - maps where appropriate, images of what the people wear and the food they eat, what the buildings look like etc - and let your child make a scrap book.
You might also ask your child to use their scrapbook and write a little bit about how this country is different from where they live. Older children might like to do some creative writing about the chosen country or be inspired to draw/paint pictures to go in their scrapbook.
If possible you could read traditional stories from this culture with your child and find some traditional clothes for them to dress up in - or alternatively try to make some. For instance if you were looking at spices from India you might like to dress up in some saris or make some pretend ones from pretty bedsheets! This is also a perfect opportunity to look at other religions that people around the world follow.
For older children and teens this activity with the spice table can then be extended by encouraging your child to look at how spices travelled from east to west on the silk road, and how they subsequently travelled to the Americas (this would also open up the option of moving on and learning about the slave trade if you wanted to).
When you start exploring this deceptively simple activity it opens up whole reams of possibility for looking at alternative religions and cultures, which is a the heart of many pagan parents teaching.
