Today, I’m excited to share with you why sensory play is an important part of learning.
Sensory play is any activity that allows babies to safely explore using any combination of their senses in creative and spontaneous ways. By stimulating your child’s senses, you are helping their brain develop because when a sense is engaged neural pathways are being created to assist with further learning in later years. You are also helping them develop creatively, socially and emotionally, cognitively, linguistically and physically through simply playing with them.
So how do you start integrating sensory play into your everyday life? The good news is - it is simple!
Basically, provide a variety of baby-friendly, open-ended, every-day materials, like sand, water, paint, play dough, (uncooked) rice, flour, etc - to your LO and let him / her discover how their senses work through play and experimentation.
For example, if you present your LO with a SAND AND WATER table (filled separately with both sand and water), (s)he might start out by putting his / her hand in it to see how it feels. It will not take long for your LO to try out other ways to explore the sand / water…. (s)he might poke it, pat it, sprinkle it, mould it, taste it, rub it their arms, pour it, stomp on it or even mix them together. Aside from building fine motor skills your LO will harness their creativity and natural curiosity to explore these items to see what they do.
SENSORY PLAY exercises can be categorized into:
Visual (sight) Sense Exercises; these exercises help your LO learn how to visually discriminate differences between similar objects and differing objects. At home, help your child learn visual discrimination by making simple “smaller” or “larger” comparisons, or by stacking blocks of varying sizes, or by playing matching games. (read all about visual discrimination here)
Tactile (touch) Sense Exercises; these exercises help your LO learn through his sense of touch; usually limited to the tips of the fingers. This allows the child to really focus on what he is feeling, through a concentration of a small part of his body. At home, a tactile exercise to try is Sand and Water play (as pictured above with my LO).
Baric (pressure) sense Exercises; teaches children to feel the difference of pressure or weight of different objects. This sense is heightened through the use of a blindfold or of closing your eyes.
Thermic (temperature) Sense Exercises, are activities that refine your LOs sense of temperature – cold, war, etc
Auditory (sounds) Sense Exercises, teaches your child to discriminate between different sounds. In doing these different Exercises, the child will become more sensitive to the sounds in his environment.
Olfactory (smelling) sense, is delightful to explore with children. Smells are associated with memory. At home, you can explore scent in the kitchen by isolating spices in small dishes and smelling them, or perhaps even setting up your own matching game. You can also make observations about scents outdoors as well, “Do you smell the roses?!”
Gustatory (tasting), This exercise is very easy to practice at home! At home, try isolating flavors and making a game out of tasting. For example, mix a little lemon juice and water to taste, or salt and water, or sugar and water! See what your LO likes best.
Stereognostic Sense Exercises, teaches your LO to feel objects and make recognition based on what he feels.
What are the benefits of Sensory Play?
It promotes creativity and self-discovery, increases Fine Motor and Gross Motor Skills, increases coordination, dexterity, and muscle strength through sensory play exploration.
It also stimulates brain growth and cognitive development, supports language development, problem solving skills, memory and social interaction.
It develops Eye & hand coordination, promotes creativity and imagination through role and developing stories.
And yes, sensory play is really, really fun! And messy! You can check the FREE Printables section (here) for our list of various sensory games / activities for age 0 - 12 months old)
What sensory play activities do you engage your LO in at home?
Love & Light
Oby O
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