Research has shown that your baby’s earliest sessions of learning only happen through his senses; thus, children benefit greatly from sensory activities. Long before your tiny baby opens up his wrist to grasp the world around him, his senses – touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing and even his muscle sense – are open to new experiences through his sensory system.
By providing a variety of baby-friendly, open-ended, every-day materials, infants and young toddlers have the opportunity to discover how their senses work through imagination-based play and experimentation. Sensory experiences can be great, messy fun and the possibilities are endless! They also help your LO examine, explore and subsequently, even categorize. It could also boost your LOs language acquisition, motor skill and overall development.
For today, I’ve put together a color themed Sensory Treasure Basket for my 13-month-old to explore! Sensory baskets are virtually FREE to create, take a few minutes to put together, are natural and help to develop so many skills and abilities in babies from 6-18 months.
A color themed sensory basket is SO quick and simple to create and, once you’ve made a set of color themed treasure baskets, it’s easy to move onto textures, shapes, sizes etc. It’s so much fun to create these resources and my boys love engaging with them so much more than shop bought toys.
In this colour themed baby treasure basket we included:
- a carrot (you could also use clementines) - for tasting
- a piece of soft felt - for touch
- a string of orange wooden beads
- a jewelry box filled with a sealed bag of noisy beads – for sound
- a plastic circle teether
- a sponge sprinkled with lavender extract – for smell
- a cotton string bag
- a plastic spoon
- an ice cream stick
The items have been selected in a way that they help invoke the different senses. As with all exploratory play the aim is to sit back and allow your child to explore on their own, without any interference or direction of play. Personally, i find it intriguing to just sit beside my 13mo while he plays and just observe how he explores the materials and what he makes of them.
Depending on their stage of development, children may enjoy the motor element of the basket as much as the contents, that is, simply taking each thing out one by one and putting them back in again! Or rolling them, banging them together and generally discovering what they can make them do.
Of course, having a good lick and chew of the edible items is at the top of the list! Babies learn about the world primarily through the thousands of sensory receptors on their tongues, so encouraging mouthing of objects is important. You learn SO much more about an orange by being allowed to hold it, squish it, roll it and lick it than by simply being shown a picture in a book or being offered tidy slices already cut up for eating.
Sensory baskets are wonderful for:
The objects inside are interesting to look at, feel, shake and taste, yet safe and non-toxic. There is no particular “purpose” to any of them, yet they can be manipulated, explored and played with in a multitude of ways.
The basket promotes curiosity and a natural desire to investigate and think, which are wonderful skills to be seeking to develop in babies!
It encourages the use of their senses to discover, explore, investigate and examine new materials/ shapes/ colours/ tastes/ textures/ sounds/ weights/ quantities.
It develops thinking skills and promotes open-ended and independent play.
Tips:
1. Change some of the objects regularly to keep the basket interesting and fresh to play with. Once my 13mo starts to fling things out without even looking at them, I know things have got a bit stale again!
2. Keep it hidden and just bring it out once or twice during the day, therefore preserving the novelty factor alive.
3. It’s crucial to have the TV off and other distractions kept to a minimum, then just sit by baby and interact when he / she invites you to.
4. Don’t leave baby alone with the basket however, as there may be some items that are dangerous if played with without supervision.
What could you find around your house to put in your treasure sensory basket?
Love & Light,
Oby O.
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