You may have seen it: rainbow colored rice, colored chickpeas, wooden scoops and bowls. It looks beautiful right? But what is it? Sensory play is becoming popular by the day and by the end of this blog you will totally understand why.
From birth through early childhood, children use their senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. They do this by touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, moving and hearing.
As adults, our senses provide us with vital information that we use to inform decision making thousands of times a day. We barely notice it and may take it for granted, but it’s for this reason that helping children to learn about their own senses is so important.
What Is Sensory Play?
Picking things up and feeling their texture is what is often being associated with sensory play, but it’s about much more than touch. Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates a young child’s senses of touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing, as well as anything which engages movement and balance. Sensory play is only really limited by your own imagination since with every movement at least one sense is being sparked. I guess the simplest way to help children engage their senses is by playing outside with nature, full of colors, movement, textures, sounds and smells.
Providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development – it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways This leads to a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem solving skills.
The Benefits of Sensory Play
With sensory play, there’s always much more going on than meets the eye. Sensory activities, in addition to being fun and interesting, encourage children to explore and investigate. These activities also support children to use the ‘scientific method’ of observing, forming a hypothesis, experimenting and making conclusions.
So allowing your child to use theirs senses to explore as much as possible, in a safe manner of-course, can have multiple benefits. Here are a few:
- Sensory play supports language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem solving skills and social interaction
- Research shows that sensory play builds nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which lead to the child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks.
- This type of play aids in developing and enhancing memory
- Sensory play is great for calming a frustrated or anxious child
- It helps children learn sensory attributes (hot, cold, dry, wet)
- Sensory play helps develop a child’s attention span and concentration
Conclusion
So, sensory play is not only about the beautiful dyed rainbow rice and colorful water beads. It’s about more than that! Sensory play has become a huge part of our daily lives and we continuously see the benefits it has. The desire to engage with sensory play comes naturally for children and should be encouraged and supported both at home and in early learning environments.
Sensory play is a fun and entertaining way of introducing basic knowledge to a child through their senses. A child can learn many skills, expand their vocabulary, learn about feelings and senses of touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing. By using taste safe products such as rice, water, cornstarch, vegetables, yoghurt, fruits and so on makes it possible to start at only a few months old. I’ll be writing more about that soon!
Providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development – it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways This leads to a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem solving skills.
Check out my Instagram page @everydaysensoryplay for fun and easy sensory play activities!