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How exploring the world through touch, taste, sound, and smell builds the foundation for lifelong learning.
From the moment they are born, children start using their senses to help them explore and understand the world around them. As they grow and develop over the next months and years, their senses play an increasingly important role as they interact with their environment.
In this guide, we look at how sensory play stimulates children in their early years, the incredible developmental benefits it provides, and how you can encourage it both at home and in the nursery.
Sensory play is essentially any kind of play activity that stimulates one or more of the senses and encourages little ones to be curious. Using several senses at once helps children fully engage with their environment. It is highly inclusive and beneficial for all children in their early years, including those with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
Sensory play is not just about getting messy. It assists in three vital areas of early childhood development:
Experiencing new textures and sounds helps build new neural connections in the brain. It builds a strong foundation for problem-solving skills and greatly improves language comprehension as they learn descriptive words like “soft”, “rough”, or “sweet”.
Using touch helps develop gross and fine motor skills. As little ones navigate towards an object to squeeze, pull, mould, or shape it, they develop stronger hand muscles. This also assists with developing full-body balance and coordination.
Engaging several senses at once allows children to become fully absorbed in their play. Repetitive sensory activities, such as rolling dough or painting, are incredibly therapeutic and help children self-regulate their emotions and relieve anxiety.
There are lots of fun sensory activities that you can set up easily at home using everyday household items:
Fill paper or plastic cups with tactile materials like dry rice, pasta, or water beads. You can provide empty containers made from different materials (like pans or cardboard boxes) so they can pour the rice and hear the different sounds they make.
Best done outside on a warm day or in an empty bath. Fill containers with water and add a couple of drops of food colouring. Make some water lukewarm and some cold to help your child learn about different temperatures.
Squeeze a few different coloured blobs of paint into a clear, sealable plastic food bag and tape it to the table. Your child can squish and mix the colours together with their fingers without any mess.
Place a variety of flat, textured materials on the floor for your little one to walk or crawl over barefoot. Try using a towel, bubble wrap, a cushion, and the underside of a waterproof picnic blanket.
At Kids Planet, every pre-school and nursery setting has its own range of sensory activities designed to help little ones grow and learn in a stimulating environment:
We understand how sensory play acts as a great learning and development tool for every child. Come and see our messy play zones and mud kitchens in action.
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