Inspiration for sensory exploration in your classroom!
Sensory play is an important part of early childhood development. It lets children explore and learn about their world through what they do best – play. We do lots of different kind of sensory play in preschool and I thought I would show some of the materials we have used this year so far…
Embrace the Mess
As much as children love sensory play – adults tend to dread it. Sensory play can be messy and a daunting task for adults to keep up with. So the key is to approach sensory play with the right mindset. First, it is important to remember that children learn best when they can actually touch, see, smell, taste, hear, and manipulate the materials in their world…
Scooping and Pouring
As children scoop up seeds or rice or other small items and fill up a container, they are discovering how much that container can hold before it overflows.. Sensory play promotes spacial awareness, mathematical thinking, and scientific exploration and discovery…
A Relaxing Experience
Sometimes sensory play is simply a great way for children to relieve their stress. Sensory play can be very soothing and relaxing to a young child…
Building Fine Motor Skills
Sensory play is also a great way to foster fine motor development. Rolling and cutting up play dough or scooping and pouring water and beans all involve eye -hand coordination and fine motor control. In the process of playing with these materials, children are building the skills and muscles they will need for handwriting and other more formal educational processes down the road…
Using a Variety of Materials
Sensory play can involved just about any kind of material you can think of from sticks and leaves to water, playdough, goop, beans, rice, pasta, paper, straws, and the list goes on. If it can be put in a tub along with a few tools for play and the freedom to explore and manipulate, then it can be used for sensory play…
Adding to the Sensory Experience
Adding tools for sensory play is always a must. We have an entire shelf of baskets filled with cups, laundry lids, shovels, measuring spoons, tweezers, magnifiers, and other items. We rotate the items frequently and the children use those items in the sensory tubs. It is more fun to scoop up pasta and pour it from one container to another than just to have a container of pasta. Tools for play help make sensory play more interesting and engaging…
Offering a Variety of Sensory Experiences
We have some sort of sensory play out for the children just about every day. There is rarely a day that we don’t have a sensory tub or some kind of sensory activity out for the children to explore. On most days, we even have more than one kind of sensory activity for the children to choose from…
I set out materials and tools for sensory play in a variety of ways. Sometimes, I set the materials out in trays and other times I use tubs. By giving the children a tray or tub, they have their working space to explore…
Exploring Sand and Water
I also have a water and sand table that we rotate items for sensory play in…
Using their Imagination
Just because you use a material once, doesn’t mean you can’t use it again. Children don’t mind playing with the same materials many times over. Each time they use the materials, they will invent new ideas for play and imagination…
What a fabulous post….and linky! It makes my heart sing to read your post as I share the passion! 🙂
I am very new to the blogosphere and hope to share this paasion the same way you do. You are an inspiration and I look forward to reading more….
Thanks xx
Janice – I LOVED your jelly sensory! I already shared it on Facebook too! I am now following that blog of yours!
Lots of fun here, great post Deborah! Shared on T & FB.
Thank you for sharing:) So very sweet of you!
I love looking at the pictures and reading about all of your wonderful ideas. Thanks so much for posting so regularly with quality information!
Heidi Butkus
https://heidisongs.blogspot.com
Heidi – I appreciate you stopping by and keeping in touch. You are an amazing educator with wonderful resources. It is my honor to have you here sharing with me.
These are so many great ideas!! My little baby is older now, so I have being doing more sensory activities with her too. I need to start documenting them since otherwise I tend to forget them. The pom pom magnet one is one of my favorites that you shared I need to try that still!
How old is she now Kristina? I love the pom pom magnets too. We use them in all kinds of ways.
Great idea! I love linkys that are different than the norm…. look forward to seeing everyone’s ideas every month 🙂
Let’s just hope I can keep up with this idea. I have a tendency to change my mind:)
Great link-up, Deborah! I love all the ideas I’ve seen! Sorry my November bin posted twice!!
No worries – it is easy to fix:)
Last year we did a little unit on farming and the grain chain, so I put out bowls of flour, farro wheat, rice and I think I even threw some popcorn kernels in there, too. My kiddos had so much fun mixing and stirring – we had flour everywhere! The best was my one class who decided they wanted to take some of it home, so I sent little ziploc bags filled for each of them at the end of the day. Their moms were more than confused until I explained that no, they weren’t for eating! 🙂 This past… Read more »
I love the dog biscuits! And I love that you sent some home. I have been saving plastic bottles and my students take home some of whatever we play with in the bottles just about every time.
This is such an awesome post! Shared it in several places!
Thank you for that!
Great activities, Deborah! I’ve been busy pinning your post and others to my Pinterest boards – especially my Any-Season Sensory Tubs board: https://pinterest.com/debchitwood/any-season-sensory-tubs/.
I will have to remember your pinterest next time I am in need of another sensory idea!
What a fabulous resource! We try not to use food items in play so it was great to see so many non-food sensory play ideas in your list!
There are definitely lots of ideas for both food and nonfood sensory play!
Whoooaaaa! Over 80 Sensory Ideas! We’ll be set for the entire year! Thanks Deb and everyone who contributed:)
Isn’t it wonderful Myra – there really are enough ideas for sensory play every day!!
I love your post on the sensory table. Thanks for all the great ideas that we can share with the teachers at our preschool!
You are welcome Tom – thanks for stopping by today:)
Fantastic! This resource is going to save me so much time:) Do you mind me asking how you coloured the popcorn?
We tried several methods but in the end we ended up adding dry powdered jello to the popcorn after it was popped and shook it in bags to coat all the popcorn. It was an unusual mix of sweet and salty (and buttery) but the kids liked it anyway:)
Ah thank you, I’ve tried food colouring and paint but keep ending up with a soggy mess!
Oh, love this post. I’m always looking for more sensory stuff to do!
Can’t believe I missed this linky! I’ll be here next month!
Be sure to join us!
Interesting how some of this is almost word for word identical to the Level 3 Childcare and Education textbook by Carolyn Meggit (2015 edition). Page 262-263 to be exact. Also interesting to see that there are no sources mentioned. Just an observation
That is Interesting!!! I will have to check that out since this post was written in 2011:)
[…] the sensory exploration had come to a stopping point (on my preschooler’s terms), we began to look at what was alike […]