Sensory Play Ideas

Here is a cool handout that I put together to help parents get some ideas for sensory based play. Reminder: this may be hard for your child, make sure he his happy (well rested, fed, clean diaper, etc.) Also, if your child has sensory difficulties that affect eating you probably will want to do these activities in an area he is not expected to eat in, like outside or at a water table so that he doesn't make any negative associations to eating or food. Keep these activities fun and stress-free. It is ok to get messy!

Let’s broaden your child’s sensory input with activities that are S.A.F.E. (Sensory-motor, Appropriate, Fun and Easy). Let’s provide tactile sensations of dough, water, clay, glue, rock, mud, sap, earth, paint, feathers and fur. Children thrive when their eyes, ears, skin, and whole bodies ingest and digest all kinds of sensory stimuli. They may develop to their greatest potential if they have opportunities to feel rain on their faces, leaves in their hair, goo on their fingers, and mud between their toes.

SOME S.A.F.E. TACTILE EXPERIENCES

• Finger-painting on a tray with chocolate pudding. This open-ended, hands-on activity feels as good as it tastes. Next time, offer shaving cream and enjoy the smell and easy clean-up.

• Digging for worms. Handling worms is about as tactile as you can get.

• Going barefoot, lakeside. The differences between firm and squishy, warm and cold, dry and wet are worth investigating.

• Forming rice balls or rolling cookies in sugar.

• Kneading playdough or real dough. Make shapes, people, pretzels, or blobs.

• Ripping paper. Strips of newspaper are useful to line the hamster cage. Strips of construction paper or tissue paper make beautiful collages. Remember the process, not the product, is the goal.

• Discovering treasures in a Feely/Sensory Box. (Cut a hand-sized hole in a shoebox lid. Fill the box with lentils, cotton balls, packing peanuts, or sand. Add buttons, shells, uncooked macaroni, or small toys.) The idea is to thrust a hand through the hole and let the fingers do the seeing. No peeking!

• Collecting seeds, pebbles, or shells in an egg carton. Loading up the receptacles and dumping them out is great fun for a very young child. The ability to sort and classify the items comes later. *watch for choking hazards

• Petting the pet. Drying a wet dog, stroking a kitten, providing a finger perch for a parakeet, or hugging a baby are tactile experiences that make a child feel good, inside and out.

taken from Kranowitz, C. (2004), In Praise of Mud, S.I. Focus