Sensory play relates to our five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Exercising these senses helps to develop connections among different areas of our brain. Sensory play can include singing nursery rhymes, making words rhyme, looking at pictures to name small items, reading to children, or encouraging them to feel various textures with their hands and feet. Often people think of sensory play as making a mess. However, working with different materials and textures as early as infancy can engage the senses of sight, touch, and sometimes even sound.
As babies grow into toddlers and preschoolers, sensory play expands to everything in the children’s environment and the benefits of this type of play also expand. In addition to creating increased connections among all the sensory areas in the brain, the children’s motor areas also rapidly develop. The more children use their hands to manipulate items of different sizes and shapes, the more they develop and control their fine motor skills. Utilizing their entire body while playing with large items also develops their gross motor skills. Sensory play also enhances language development skills, problem-solving skills, and creativity. No matter what age, sensory play allows children to develop skills they will need for the future.
Here are some ideas you can use to promote sensory play in your household:
Mud and Water
Use beach toys with your little ones while they play in the sand or dirt. Add water bit by bit and discuss how the dirt changes texture.
Play-Doh
You can make objects with Play-Doh or talk about how it feels and smells. And if it gets left out and hardens, talk about how it feels at that point. Be careful if the Play-Doh isn’t edible – your kiddo might try and use their tasting skills.
Finger Painting
Talk about how it feels on the hands to finger paint and point out the colors you and your child are noticing. Finger painting can be done with different things such as mud or shaving cream.
Eating
During snack time, talk about what your little one is eating, how it tastes, the texture of the food, and what color it is.
These are just a few activities to encourage sensory play with your little one. No matter what sensory activity you are doing, you are promoting various areas of development for your child. At the end of the day, the most important part of sensory play is that you are enjoying time together! If you want more ideas about sensory play, you can reach out to our Family Support Navigators at navigation@familyfutures.net. Happy messy play, parents!
