Why Is Sensory Play Important for Children?
– Sensory is important for children because it allows them to be messy and enriches their awareness of their bodies and senses. Sensory activities can help kids focus on their experience in the present moment.
Here are 10 sensory activities for toddlers!
1.) Slime
Kids love playing with slime, and it is so beneficial for them. It is an amazing, tactile sensory experience. Most parents aren’t fans of slime because of the mess it can make, but it’s a great sensory tool for children. Manipulating slime and measuring ingredients can strengthen fine motor skills, and experimenting with slime recipes helps kids learn about cause and effect.
Slime helps kids get in touch with almost all senses; they focus on how it feels, sounds, looks, and smells.
Benefits are:
- Promotes mindfulness
- Helps children focus
- Encourages them to play independently
- Promotes fine motor skills
- It is calming
- It’s portable
2.) Ice Painting
This activity allows children the opportunity to explore color mixing, patterns and to feel the texture of the slippery, cold, wet paint. It will enable your child to be creative and use their imagination. As the paint melts, they will learn how when colors mix, they make a new color.
Benefits are:
- It helps develop fine motor skills
- It helps develop gross motor skills & control
- Hand-eye coordination
- Learn colors
3.) Play Dough
Playdough provides a great sensory medium, and the possibilities are limitless and will evoke your child’s imagination. The malleable properties of play dough make it fun for investigation and exploration. Playdough can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, scored, raked, punctured, poked, and shredded.
Benefits are:
-
Develops Fine Motor Skills
-
Calming
-
Encourages creativity
-
Enhances Hand-eye coordination
-
Improves social skills
-
Supports literacy and numeracy
-
Promotes playtime
4.) Oobleck
Oobleck is a fascinating way to engage in sensory play and understand science. It is great because it is inexpensive, quick, easy, taste-safe, and so much FUN! All it takes is cornstarch and water, and it is environmentally friendly.
– Your child can drive cars through it, play with it in your hands, mix colors, dribble and paint with goop on the sidewalk or driveway, or make sudsy goop.
Benefits are:
- Supports language development
- Builds gross motor skills
- Builds fine motor skills
- Learn science concepts
- Strengthen hand muscles
5.) Sensory Toy
A sensory toy is specially designed to stimulate one or more senses. They may also help and be appealing to children on the spectrum because they can help them remain calm and provide the sensory experience they want. Much of what young children learn is through touch and stimulation of the senses.
– Types of sensory toys are rattles, crinkly books, teething beads, toys with mirrors, sensory shapes, and activity walkers.
Benefits are:
- Cognitive stimulation
- Language development
- Fine and gross motor skills
- Social interaction
- Calming and comforting
- Develop a sense of awareness
6.) Finding Small Items Hidden in the Kinetic Sand
Playdough is fantastic for encouraging imaginative play. Children love to play hide and seek and love playdough, so why not combine the two. Hidden treasure playdough is a fun way to present small toys that children can use in their imaginative playdough play.
Benefits are:
- Develops fine motor skills
- Calming
- Encourages creativity
- Enhances hand-eye coordination
- Improves social skills
- Supports literacy and numeracy
- Promotes playtime
7.) Noodle Play
Kids are designed to explore the world through their senses, and exploring sensory materials helps kids’ emotional development. This sensory activity allows children to be creative. Different noodles provide texture-related tactile sense development. Kids will love the feel of playing with noodles.
Benefits are:
- Language development
- Problem-solving skills
- Cognitive function
- Fine motor development
- Develop creativity
8.) Color Papers Hidden in Rice
Children learn best through hands-on experiences. It can be very calming to run your hands through a textured material like rice, and it is a wonderful invitation to play and create imaginary worlds.
– Fun sensory bins with rice are rainbow sensory bin, alphabet search, and watermelon rice sensory bin.
Benefits are:
- Develop Pincer grip
- Hand-eye coordination
- Calming
- Fine motor strength
- Learn colors
- Language skills
9.) Stamping
Creating art expands a child’s ability to interact with the world around them and provides a new set of skills for self-expression and communication. They will love creating aesthetically pleasing works and experiences.
Benefits are:
- Fine motor skills
- Strengthening hand muscles
- Hand-eye coordination
- Coordination
- Explore colors
10.) Water Beads
Water beads are soft, squishy, and smooth to touch. Children will love the feel of the water beads and will love scooping them with their hands. They are soothing to touch and look at. You can even add these to your child’s bath. Children will also love watching the water beads grow bigger.
Benefits are:
- Fine motor skills
- Coordination
- Exploration
- Learn colors
- Promotes creativity
- Teaches science
- Hand-eye coordination
Unitl next Blog!
Hiral
Do you have questions such as..
- What activities are best for my 10 months old? or
- From when should I start my child’s potty training? or
- How to develop correct posture for handwriting and get my child ready for School?
Anything regarding 0-8 years, you can have a Free-consult with our CEO and Award winning pediatric Occupational Therapist – Dr. Hiral Khatri.
Book your free 20 minutes consult today!
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