Throughout a child’s life, sensory play is crucial to their development. Their senses are their most familiar and most basic way to explore and process new information.
Here are five reasons why sensory play is beneficial and why it’s important for your young student to participate in making their own sensory play toys:
- It can build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which lead to the child’s ability to complete more difficult learning tasks.
- It’s beneficial for language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem solving skills, emotions and social interaction.
- It helps with the development and enhancement of memory.
- It aids in calming an anxious child.
- It helps a child learn sensory attributes, such as hot or cold, hard or soft, and sticky or slimy.
There are many different sensory objects and toys you can create with your students. Below are a few fun ideas to incorporate sensory play into your daily curriculum:
- Teach them about slime science! They’ll love playing with the slim and learning how they can make it themselves.
- You can’t go wrong with Play Dough! Using play dough with young children encourages investigation and exploration, as well as secretly building up fine motor skills. To further engage your little learners, have them create their own.
- Kindness Potion Sensory Jars. Each color represents a specific meaning, such as green meaning patience and blue meaning peace. Watching the glitter fall slowly can help calm anxious children. Discuss what is causing the glitter to fall slowly for a bit of science education.