Families For Life | Feel your play! Sensory play for toddlers
Is your little one making a mess during playtime? They could be engaging in sensory play – activities that stimulate a child’s senses and help them learn about the world! Examples of sensory play include moulding dough, scooping sand, or splashing in water.
While playing outdoors is a great way for your child to engage in sensory play, you can also create these sensory experiences at home!
But first, let’s learn about sensory play
Our little ones learn best through active participation and stimulating their senses to process information. Sensory play helps promote exploratory behaviour that leads to goal-directed behaviour. You can observe this in your child as they manipulate materials and direct their learning through experimenting and handling.
By touching, smelling, hearing, tasting, and observing, your child becomes aware of how things work and improves their ability to learn through their senses.
Sensory play for physical development
Sensory play can do wonders for a child’s motor skills. When your child uses tools like tongs or spoons to transfer or manipulate materials, they are improving their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Some activities, like moulding clay, require big muscle movements that develop gross motor skills.
Sensory play for Intellectual development
Engaging the five senses during play can help your child develop thinking skills. You can also help them develop their language and vocabulary by encouraging them to describe the feel or sound of the material they are handling.
Let’s not forget the socio-emotional development that comes with open play. The joy of discovery and the sense of wonder that come from self-driven play can boost self-esteem and encourage lifelong learning!
Create sensory experiences at home!
Now that you know the benefits of sensory play, here’s how you can encourage it at home!
Make space for some mess
Let your child explore fun textures with unconventional materials. Grab a bin or a bowl and fill it with rice, dried corn kernels or dried beans. Then, hand them scoops or funnels to let them play with the items. Toy trucks or machines can add a fun twist to the experience and encourage your child to experiment.
You can also let your child play with water in buckets or make mud out of corn starch and water. Let them experiment with different ratios of corn starch and watch as they mould, grasp, and run their fingers through the mixture! We have a recipe for homemade dough that you can make with your child. Join them as they work with the dough to stimulate creativity, develop motor skills, and build problem-solving skills!
Put together a sensory bag
Gather your child’s toys and put them in a cloth bag. Try to include toys with different textures and sounds to help your child engage the full range of their senses. You can consider these:
Baby toys that make sounds like baby rattles
Toys that squeak or contain bells
Knobbly plastic teething rings
Balls of different sizes and textures
You can also include household items in your cloth bag. Ensure that these items are safe for your child and supervise them when they are playing. Avoid fragile items or anything small enough for your child to swallow. Try putting these in your sensory cloth bag:
Plastic cups, bowls, and lids
Spoons of different sizes, like wooden spoons, teaspoons or measuring spoons
Rice or buttons in a tightly sealed plastic container that can rattle when shaken
Play is great for your child’s development as it helps in skill mastery, encourages problem-solving, and even teaches your child the value of perseverance and discipline! So, the next time you see your child getting messy, let them explore the world and turn that moment into a learning opportunity!