How sensory play benefits your child—plus sensory activities for all ages
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Whether you’re looking to level-up tummy time or occupy a busy toddler or preschooler, we’ve got you covered.
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If you’ve read a parenting blog or listened to a parenting podcast lately, you’ve likely heard the term “sensory play” being tossed around. But what is sensory play? In short, sensory play is a specific type of play designed to stimulate children’s senses. The benefits of sensory play are wide-reaching, from encouraging language and communication to supporting critical thinking skills.
Incredibly important for early childhood development, sensory play provides valuable experiences that engage your little one’s senses and support their cognitive, physical, and social growth. You might point out the colors of the rainbow to your 3-month-old, sing “The Wheels on the Bus” with your 6-month-old, or help your toddler chase after bubbles to pop: All are examples of sensory play. When babies and young children participate in this type of play, they explore not only different textures, but also colors, sounds, smells, and tastes, which helps them understand the world around them.
We’ll walk through more benefits of sensory play for kids of all ages, plus ideas on how to incorporate sensory play into your daily routine.
What is sensory play?
Sensory play is a type of play that engages one or more of a child’s senses. It’s usually focused on the sense of touch, like playing with playdough or a water table, but even listening to music and splashing around at bathtime can be forms of sensory play.
Essentially, sensory play is a key way to help your child’s brain build more nerve connections, which can allow them to complete more complex tasks. “When your child engages in sensory play, they’re helping their brain develop and learn from certain aspects of their environment,” says occupational therapist Suzanne Messer, MS, OTR/L, to Cleveland Clinic.
Sensory play also has a significant role in supporting babies’ proprioceptive and vestibular systems, which are crucial for their overall development.
How sensory play supports babies’ proprioceptive sense
The proprioceptive system helps the brain understand where the body is in space and how it moves. By crawling, climbing and manipulating objects, babies receive sensory input that helps develop their proprioceptive sense.
How sensory play supports babies’ vestibular sense
The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, is responsible for maintaining balance, coordinating movements, and processing spatial orientation. When babies experience activities like swinging, spinning, rocking, and rolling during sensory play, their vestibular system is stimulated, enhancing their sense of balance and coordination.
7 reasons why sensory play is important
Sensory play is considered vital in early childhood education, as it has a foundational role in development. Here are some key reasons why sensory play is so important.
1. Stimulates brain development
Sensory play stimulates the brain, creating connections between nerve cells and promoting neural pathways. It helps enhance cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making.
2. Helps with sensory integration
By engaging in sensory activities, children learn to process and integrate sensory information from their environment. This helps them to make sense of the world around them and respond to sensory stimuli.
3. Encourages language development
Sensory play can help kids learn new vocabulary, improve communication skills, and develop the ability to express their thoughts and feelings.
4. Supports fine and gross motor skills
Manipulating and exploring different materials during sensory play supports the development of fine motor skills such as finger dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Gross motor skills are also enhanced through activities like climbing and balancing.
5. Fosters social and emotional development
Sensory play offers opportunities for children to take turns and cooperate with others. It fosters emotional development by providing a safe space for self-expression and creativity.
6. Boosts creativity and Imagination
Sensory play stimulates children’s imagination, allowing them to engage in open-ended, imaginative play. It nurtures their creativity, problem-solving skills, and divergent thinking.
7. Promotes relaxation and calm
Sensory play can have a soothing and calming effect on children, helping them relax, reduce stress and promote self-regulation.
Sensory play for babies
Tummy time just got way more fun.
Benefits of sensory play for babies
There are numerous benefits of sensory play for your little one. Namely, it helps them make connections between different sensory inputs, which boosts brain development. Remember: Your infant is learning every waking moment!
In addition, sensory play encourages language and communication skills as babies thanks to new vocabulary (“can you burst the bubble?”) and as they interact with you or other children over a shared experience.
Sensory play also contributes to babies’ motor skill development. When babies manipulate and explore sensory materials, they enhance their hand-eye coordination, boost fine motor skills and gain muscle control.
Sensory play ideas for babies
Ready to incorporate sensory play into your baby’s routine? Provide them with various sensory materials such as textured toys, supervised water play and musical instruments. (Just ensure the materials are safe and age-appropriate.)
Here are a few of our favorite ideas.
1. Dramatic story time
Try reading your baby books in an animated voice and telling stories about relatives and friends that they know (or will come to know) to engage their attention. Try making faces as you talk to convey the emotions you’re describing—your little love will soon learn how to react to different feelings.
2. Playing with food
Aside from eating new things, experiencing how it feels is another way of learning. Babies over the age of 6 months can explore colors, textures and smells all through the foods they eat. Playing with food is an important part of their sensory development.
3. Power up a playlist
Music is a powerful way to encourage vocabulary, language development, rhythm and movement. Create a playlist of baby-friendly songs you and your little one love, and focus on tunes where you can add in hand motions to do together in time—even if you just make them up!
4. Kitchen play
Give your baby safe objects from the kitchen to explore, like a wooden spoon, or a silicone container to hold, mouth and look at.
Sensory toys for babies
Sensory play for toddlers
Looking for easy ways to engage your busy toddler? We have thoughts.
Benefits of sensory play for toddlers
Your busy toddler is eager to explore their world. Sensory play can help them safely engage in hands-on exploration, while also fostering their cognitive, physical, social, emotional and creative growth.
Through pouring, scooping and stacking, sensory play can help refine toddlers’ fine motor skills. You can also challenge your toddler to jump, balance and run to ramp up those gross motor skills, too.
By giving toddlers a chance to express and regulate their emotions in a safe and calm way, sensory play supports emotional and social development. Additionally, sensory play can be a social experience where toddlers can learn important skills like sharing, cooperating and taking turns.
All those sensory bins are great for open-ended play, which promotes creativity and problem solving.
Sensory play ideas for toddlers
Toddlers may still need some careful supervision and oversight when it comes to sensory activities (hold off on busy boards until age 3 due to small parts), but there are lots of fun ways to give them a multisensory experience.
Here are a few of our favorite ideas.
1. Nature walk
Take your little one on a nature walk, encouraging them to observe and collect items like leaves, rocks, or flowers, fostering their curiosity, vocabulary and connection with the natural world. What else can they find?
2. The big dig
Freeze small cars or other toys in a large block of ice and provide your child with tools like spoons or paintbrushes to chip away the ice, promoting fine motor skills, problem-solving and a cool sensory experience.
3. Sensory bins
Once your tot is over 18 months, sensory bins are a great way for them to explore new textures and tactile sensations. Try filling a large but shallow bin or baking pan with dried black beans, rice or kinetic sand, and then incorporate a few of their favorite toys into the mix, too, like mini metal cars or trucks for digging or items found in nature to discover and collect, like pinecones, acorns and flowers.
Sensory toys for toddlers
Sensory play for older kids
Your kids aren’t too old for the thrills of sprinkles and sponge paint, promise.
Benefits of sensory play for kids
Sensory play still offers big benefits as kids continue to grow.
By stimulating kids’ curiosity and creativity, sensory play enhances kids’ ability to think abstractly and creatively. Sensory play also helps school-aged kids refine their sensory processing skills, enabling them to better understand and respond to sensory stimuli.
Sensory play can be a collaborative and social experience for school-aged kids, promoting teamwork, communication, and social skills. It encourages sharing, taking turns, and problem-solving together.
As an outlet for school-aged kids to express and regulate their emotions, sensory play can be a calming and therapeutic activity that helps them manage stress and anxiety.
Sensory play ideas for kids
By incorporating sensory activities into their learning and play experiences, teachers and parents can help school-aged kids develop and refine their skills.
Here are a few of our favorite ideas.
1. Wash ‘n’ dry
If your kiddo loves helping you clean, scrubbing down their toys is a great way for them to get their hands wet while feeling like they’re contributing. Set up a couple plastic bins or large soup pots and fill one with soapy water and the second with plain water for rinsing. It’s fun to do this activity each week with a different category of toys: this week, farm animals, next week, toy cars.
2. Sponge paint
Gather a few various painting tools like sponges, feathers, or cotton balls, and let your child explore different textures and patterns while painting (washable paint is our pick!). This activity enhances their creativity, fine motor skills and sensory exploration.
3. Sprinkle letter tracing
Create a sensory bag that’s perfect for letter writing with fingers by filling a large gallon-size resealable bag with sprinkles. With the bag closed, tape the bag flat onto a table and spread the sprinkles evenly throughout. Then, model using your finger to draw the letters of the alphabet, your child’s name or numbers. Then, ask them to do the same.
4. Rainbow sorting
Your local craft store might sell a big bag of random sewing buttons, which makes for a great rainbow craft opportunity. Ask your child to glue the buttons into a rainbow on a piece of cardstock, which helps with sensory discrimination and color recognition.
Sensory toys for kids
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