FROM HOME & CLASSROOM MAGAZINE: Everyday Sensory Play
Providing materials and the opportunities to explore is a wonderful way to enhance and support sensory play
Materials and experiences that stimulate an infant’s sense of touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, internal sense of safety, sight and hearing are often called Sensory Play. Judging by the hundreds of Pinterest postings and YouTube videos about creating sensory play experiences, it’s a topic that has captivated many people who work with and love young children.
Many parents and caregivers have been having fun creating dazzling sensory experiences for their children such as sensory bottles filled with olive oil, colored water and sparkling materials that flow between those with a lava lamp-like hypnotism. Others have created sensory walls, hanging a variety of textures within picture frames for children to explore textures like bristly, furry, feathery, knitted, silky, lacey, and wooly. These are wonderful sensory play ideas.
For many of us though, the DIY, crafty projects may seem a bit overwhelming or the time for creating them may never come. No worries, the beauty of sensory experiences is that they surround us each and every moment of each and every day! As caregivers we may just need to slow, down, observe the sensory input around us and intentionally share it with children.
Children are natural born scientists who gather information using their senses throughout the day. “Taking time to smell the roses” brings a richness of understanding along with enjoyment and appreciation to everyday experiences. Opportunities present themselves in our routine caregiving moments as well. Providing materials and the opportunities to explore is a wonderful way to enhance and support sensory play for infants and toddlers.
/REST/ Cozy spaces in your care environment allow a child to soothe themselves and explore soft textures like high pile bath mats, super soft fleece baby blankets, silky pillows and furry stuffed animals or puppets. This stimulates the sense of touch and internal sense of safety.
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/LAP-SIT STORIES/ When children climb into your lap to share a story, your voice and the repetitive words you use to tell and re-tell the story stimulates the sense of hearing. The descriptive words give language to the experiences they’ve had and help to connect them to known words and concepts. The physical closeness and touch paired with this special moment stimulates the touch, hearing, sight and internal sense of safety.
/FREE EXPLORATION/ Presenting everyday household items like plastic colanders, metal mixing bowls, shower loofas, silicone pot holders and Tupperware, for children to choose to play with, allows for children to explore the properties through banging, mouthing, dropping , grabbing, and sliding. Noticing and giving language to the things that your child is noticing like shadows, light reflections or a bird flying by also adds sensory input. These stimulate the senses connected to body movement, hearing, sight, and touch.
/DIAPERING/ Your respectful touch, pace, and soothing language during diaper changes adds sensory understanding to the diaper changing process, the fabrics being felt as clothes and taken off and replaced and to a child’s internal sense of safety. Simply talking to the child you are changing about what you are doing together is sensory input.
/PRESENTED MATERIALS/ Many of our daily routines and activities present opportunities to share sensory experiences with children just by allowing them to “help you out” and participate fully in the experience. Older infants love the chance to wipe down tables with wet cloths. Younger infants may gain from just exploring the feel of a wet cloth. Giving children the chance to play with putting on and taking off shoes that are larger than theirs might be a fun way to play with shoe laces. Younger infants may explore by pulling ribbons tied on each end through a shoe box top. Along with these materials the language you share will stimulate the sense of touch, movement and sight.
/OUTDOOR EXPERIENCES/ Nature has so much to offer our young scientists. I love to watch toddlers navigate the weight and smoothness of rocks. Filling buckets with rocks and leaves and transporting them is a favorite on many playgrounds. Have you ever witnessed an infant’s first exposure to grass? Laying on their tummy, hands in the grass, breeze blowing by, dog barking in the background, smell of a recent lawn mowing, prickly yet soft feel of the grass, grasping and releasing the blades of grass by the fistful and sharing all this with a trusted caregiver is stimulating all senses!
Whether infants are shaking DIY shaky eggs filled with buttons, sand and jingle bells or whether they are shaking the wind chimes in your back yard or a metal bowl full of blocks, they will be gaining information about these materials, it’s properties, what they can expect from it, what they can do with it and where it fits into all of the previously gained information they have. Sensory experiences are all around us. Parents and caregivers are also still gaining from sensory experiences. Take a deep breath, a long look, get your hands dirty, taste something new and delightful, listen for an interesting sound or call an old friend, and reach up high, all the way to the sun, for a big stretch…… take it all in!
Why not? Your children already are!