36 sensory activities for toddlers to keep them busy and learning
@natasha_lebedinskaya/Twenty20
These simple ideas will keep your toddler exploring and help their brains develop, too.
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Sensory play for toddlers isn’t just about keeping them entertained (though it absolutely does that too). It’s one of the most powerful ways a young brain learns. Toddlers use all five senses—touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste—to make sense of the world around them, and sensory activities give them rich, safe opportunities to do exactly that.
The best sensory activities engage multiple senses at once, which is where the real developmental magic happens. When your toddler squishes homemade playdough, they’re not just feeling a texture—they’re building fine motor strength, making predictions, and learning cause and effect. When they shake a glitter bottle, they’re watching light scatter, noticing movement, and self-regulating their nervous system.
Here’s a quick look at how sensory play maps onto different types of learning:
- Tactile (Touch): Sand, playdough, slime, water, and textured fabrics build fine motor skills and body awareness.
- Visual (Sight): Glitter jars, color-mixing, and light play develop focus, color recognition, and cause-and-effect thinking.
- Auditory (Sound): Shaker instruments, drum play, and sound-guessing games sharpen listening and early language skills.
- Movement (Proprioception): Crawling through tunnels, obstacle courses, and heavy work builds spatial awareness and gross motor coordination.
- Smell & Taste: Scent jars and taste-safe sensory materials introduce vocabulary, memory associations, and safe exploration.
One of the best things about sensory play is that it’s largely DIY and doesn’t require expensive equipment. A bin of dry rice, a bottle of glitter, or a bowl of cool water is often all you need. Want to understand the full science behind why it matters? Read our full guide to the benefits of sensory play
Related: The best STEM toys for toddlers and kids that encourage curiosity & exploration
Here are 35 ideas for easy, at-home sensory activities for toddlers
1. Good ol’ fashioned finger painting
Get those squishy fingers going with tempera paints and some butcher-block paper, and let them enjoy the feeling of painting with all ten fingers instead of unruly paintbrushes. It’s an entirely different experience (and the art they produce is quite different too).
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Fine motor skills, color recognition, creative expression, self-expression |
2. Homemade play-dough
Among the many rainy day activities in your arsenal, homemade play-doh is one of those inexpensive sensory joys that can keep toddlers busy for hours. There are dozens of recipes out there to try, most of which involve very simple ingredients like flour, salt, and water.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Smell | Develops: Fine motor strength, creativity, language development (describing textures), early chemistry concepts |
3. Noodling with noodles
Make a batch of spaghetti, let it cool completely, and then dump it in a bowl for your children to play with. The slimy, squiggly fun cannot be beat, and it’s pretty darn cheap, too.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Tactile tolerance, curiosity, sensory processing, fine motor skills |
4. Water table or water play
Fill a few pots and bowls with a couple inches of water and prop your toddler up and let them splash around. A dedicated water/activity table makes this especially easy.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sound | Develops: Cause and effect, pouring and scooping (fine motor), early physics concepts |
5. Sensory bins
A plastic bin filled with rice, beans, kinetic sand, or any loose material is endlessly engaging. Throw in some cups, spoons, and small toys and you’ve got a self-directed activity that can run for 30+ minutes. Dyed rice is beautiful; undyed rice works just as well.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Sound | Develops: Fine motor skills, imaginative play, categorization, vocabulary building |
6. Sensory bottles/glitter jars
Upcycle clear plastic water bottles by filling them about three-quarters full with water, then adding food coloring, glitter, and a few tiny items like charms or small beads. Seal tightly. Shake, watch, breathe.
Bonus: these have a genuine calming effect for toddlers who are dysregulated. Many parents keep one in the car.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sight, Sound | Develops: Focus and attention, self-regulation, cause and effect, early science observation |
7. Busy boards
Whether you order one from Etsy or make a humble version yourself, busy boards do double duty: they stimulate a toddler’s senses and invite exploration of textures, buttons, keys, locks, and more — with the added bonus of keeping little hands engaged for a surprising amount of time.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Sound | Develops: Problem-solving, fine motor skills, independence, cognitive sequencing |
8. Scent jars
Use a variety of fresh food like orange peels, mashed banana, and vanilla extract; or use pungent flora such as fir leaves or freshly cut grass in a series of mason jars. Put a lid on each jar to ensure the smells don’t cross-contaminate one another. Then, one at a time, unscrew each lid, let your toddler have a whiff, and describe what it smells like. This one can get cute and funny!
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Smell | Develops: Vocabulary and language development, memory association, olfactory discrimination |
9. Frozen toy excavation
Freeze rubber duckies or toy cars in a large bowl of water and pop it out for toddlers to ‘excavate.’ Great for a hot summer day — they’ll be delighted watching the ice melt and trying different strategies to free their toys.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Problem-solving, cause and effect, early science (states of matter), patience |
10. Bead threading / jewelry making
Graduate your kids from cheerios to chunky plastic beads and pipe cleaners and let them experience the art of jewelry making. Supervise closely — even large beads are a potential choking hazard for curious tots.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Fine motor precision, hand-eye coordination, color and pattern recognition, focus |
11. Sensory sound guessing game
Take an object that makes noise — a bell, a rattle, keys — and move it out of your toddler’s line of sight. Shake it and ask them to guess what it is. Simple, portable, and works anywhere.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sound | Develops: Listening and auditory discrimination, language development, memory, imagination |
12. Cloud dough
Cloud dough is having a major TikTok moment, and for good reason: it’s 2 ingredients (flour and baby oil), endlessly moldable, and has a crumbly-but-squeezable texture that toddlers absolutely cannot resist. Mix 8 parts flour to 1 part baby oil. That’s it. Add food coloring if you want to make it extra.
Unlike playdough, cloud dough is dry enough to pour and crumble, which makes it fascinating from a sensory standpoint — it doesn’t behave the way kids expect, which is exactly what makes it engaging.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Smell | Develops: Fine motor strength, sensory exploration, cause and effect, imaginative play |
13. Tissue paper crinkling
Honestly one of the easiest sensory activities going: gift-wrapping tissue paper, ideally the thick kind. It crinkles endlessly, comes in every color, and costs almost nothing. Scrunch it, tear it, layer it — toddlers are deeply invested in all of the above.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sound, Sight | Develops: Auditory discrimination, fine motor skills (grasping, tearing), color recognition, open-ended exploration |
14. Soapy sensory jars
Like the glitter jars but with a sudsy twist: fill a jar or bottle with water, food coloring, and a squirt of dish soap. Shake it and watch the bubbles churn. Add glitter if you’re feeling ambitious (or chaotic).
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sight, Touch, Sound | Develops: Cause and effect, visual tracking, self-regulation, early science observation |
15. Shaving cream painting
Painting with shaving cream is ridiculously satisfying for toddlers. Use a brush or hands to paint onto a cookie sheet or other flat surface — it soaks through paper, so skip the paper. Tint the shaving cream lightly with food coloring for a foamy rainbow effect.
⚠️ Note: Not taste-safe. Use unscented, dye-free shaving cream for sensitive skin. Best done in a smock or light clothing.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Smell | Develops: Tactile tolerance, creative expression, color mixing, fine motor control |
16. DIY shaker instruments
Turn an old water bottle or plastic jar into a percussion instrument by filling it with dried beans, rice, or pebbles. Shake, shake, shake. You can make a whole set with different materials for different sounds — bonus points for comparing them.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sound, Touch | Develops: Auditory discrimination, cause and effect, rhythm and musicality, early math (comparing quantities) |
17. Foam letter and number bin
Get a bin or box of foam alphabet letters and numbers with a spoon or scoop. Toddlers can fish out letters, sort by color, match upper and lowercase — or just scoop and dump, which is also completely valid and developmentally useful.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Early literacy and numeracy, color sorting, fine motor skills, imaginative play |
18. Kinetic sand
Kinetic sand has the satisfying squish of wet sand but stays dry and contained, which makes it infinitely more parent-friendly. It holds its shape when pressed and crumbles when released — which is genuinely fascinating to small humans.
You can also make a taste-safe version at home. Motherly has a homemade kinetic sand recipe worth linking here.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Fine motor skills, cause and effect, creative and imaginative play, sensory regulation |
19. Mud kitchen / outdoor mud play
If you have any outdoor space at all, a patch of dirt and some old pots and spoons is an activity that writes itself. Add water and you have mud. Add mud and you have an hour of uninterrupted outdoor sensory play. Nature-based sensory play is some of the richest available to toddlers.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Smell, Sight | Develops: Sensory processing, scientific inquiry, gross and fine motor skills, risk tolerance, connection to nature |
20. Bubble play
Chasing, popping, and trying to catch bubbles is a full sensory experience — light refracting through the film, the soft pop on contact, the reaching and grasping. Blow them yourself or use a bubble machine if you want to sit down for a minute. No judgment.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sight, Touch, Movement | Develops: Visual tracking, gross motor coordination, spatial awareness, cause and effect |
21. Pot and pan drumming
Flip over a few pots and bowls, hand over a wooden spoon, and you’ve got a drum kit. Loud, yes. Developmental, also yes. Rhythm and beat are early auditory skills that connect directly to language and math processing. (Don’t forget some earplugs.)
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sound, Touch, Movement | Develops: Rhythm and musicality, auditory processing, cause and effect, gross motor coordination, emotional expression |
22. Obstacle course
Cushions, pillows, a cardboard box tunnel, a line of tape on the floor — that’s all you need. Toddlers crawling, climbing, jumping, and balancing are getting proprioceptive input (their sense of body position in space), which is one of the most important and often overlooked sensory systems.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Movement, Touch | Develops: Gross motor coordination, proprioception, spatial reasoning, confidence and risk-taking, sequencing |
23. Nature walk sensory scavenger hunt
Head outside with a small bag and collect things: a smooth rock, a rough bark piece, a soft leaf, a prickly seedpod. Back inside, line them up and talk about the textures. This one is low-effort and high-payoff for language development.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Smell | Develops: Vocabulary and language development, nature connection, classification and sorting, observation skills |
24. Water bead play
Water beads start tiny and grow to slippery, squishy marble-sized orbs after soaking overnight. The tactile experience is unlike anything else — toddlers tend to be transfixed. Run them through fingers, scoop them, sort by color.
⚠️ Safety note: Water beads are a serious choking hazard and not safe for children who mouth objects. Use only with close supervision, and check that beads are too large to swallow before use.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Tactile exploration, fine motor skills, color sorting, sensory regulation |
25. Ice painting
Freeze water with food coloring in ice cube trays to make paint cubes. Let toddlers swipe the melting cubes across white paper. The color bleeds and blends as the ice melts — it’s slow, satisfying, and surprisingly beautiful.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Color mixing and recognition, cause and effect, fine motor control, patience and process-oriented thinking |
26. Sensory bags (mess-free)
Seal hair gel, paint, or water beads inside a heavy-duty zip bag (tape the edges for good measure) and stick it to a window or the floor with painter’s tape. Toddlers can squish, poke, and push the contents around without touching them — great for children who are tactile-sensitive or during the mouthing stage.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Tactile exploration without mess, cause and effect, visual tracking, fine motor skills |
27. Edible finger paint (yogurt paint)
Mix plain yogurt or vanilla pudding with food coloring and you’ve got a taste-safe finger paint. Great for babies and young toddlers who are still in the ‘everything goes in the mouth’ phase. Spread it on a tray or wax paper and let them go.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Taste | Develops: Tactile tolerance, creative expression, color recognition, fine motor skills — fully taste-safe |
28. Dry pasta play
Fill a bin with different shapes of dry pasta — rigatoni, bow ties, penne, shells. Add scoops and cups. Toddlers love the clatter, the shapes, and the sorting. You can also dye the pasta with food coloring for an extra visual element.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sound, Sight | Develops: Fine motor skills, sorting and classification, early math (shapes, quantities), auditory stimulation |
29. Sticker play
Stickers are an underrated sensory activity: the peeling action alone is excellent fine motor work. Give toddlers a sheet of stickers and some paper (or a paper plate, or their own arm, which they will choose) and let them go. Reusable sticker books are especially good for extended play.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Fine motor precision (peeling), hand-eye coordination, creative expression, color and shape recognition |
30. Oobleck (cornstarch + water)
This one is a classic for a reason. Mix 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water and you get a non-Newtonian fluid: it’s solid when you squeeze it and liquid when you let it drip. Toddlers and adults alike find it genuinely confusing and wonderful.
Do this outside or over an easy-to-clean surface. Taste-safe (though not particularly tasty).
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Sensory exploration, early science concepts, cause and effect, curiosity and wonder |
31. Cloud watching / grass sitting
This one requires no supplies. Bring a blanket outside, lie down, and look up. Toddlers experience the warmth of the sun, the smell of grass, the sound of wind and birds, the visual movement of clouds. Multi-sensory, free, and often the most calming activity of the day.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell | Develops: Nature connection, attention and focus, language development (describing what they see), regulation |
32. Color mixing with droppers
Fill an ice cube tray or muffin tin with water and a few colors of food coloring. Give toddlers a dropper or turkey baster to move the colored water between compartments and watch secondary colors form. This one consistently elicits genuine ‘whoa’ reactions.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Sight, Touch | Develops: Color theory (early science), fine motor control (dropper use), cause and effect, prediction and observation |
33. Texture collage
Gather a mix of materials with varied textures — cotton balls, sandpaper scraps, bubble wrap, velvet ribbon, foil — and let toddlers glue them onto cardboard in any arrangement they like. The touching and choosing is the activity; the collage is a bonus.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight | Develops: Tactile discrimination, creative expression, fine motor skills, vocabulary (rough, smooth, bumpy, soft) |
34. Sand play (indoor or out)
Sand is one of the original sensory materials for a reason. Whether it’s a sandbox, a bin of kinetic sand, or a container of moon sand, the pouring, digging, and castle-building hits every developmental target. Add small animals or toys for imaginative play layered on top.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Movement | Develops: Fine motor skills, imaginative play, spatial reasoning, math concepts (volume and measurement) |
35. Baking together
Real baking with a toddler is chaotic, slow, and deeply worth it. Measuring and pouring engages fine motor skills; the textures of flour, butter, and dough are rich tactile experiences; and the smells of vanilla, cinnamon, and a warm oven are about as multi-sensory as it gets. The fact that you end up with something edible is a nice bonus.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Smell, Taste, Sound, Sight | Develops: Fine motor skills, early math (measuring), language development, following directions, sensory integration |
36. Shaving cream sensory table
Spray a tray, cookie sheet, or directly onto the highchair tray and let them go. Toddlers love the foam texture, the way it smears, and the fact that they’re clearly doing something a little wild. Add a drop of food coloring for color mixing.
Easy cleanup: wipe with a damp cloth. This one is best done in light clothing or with a smock — fair warning.
⚠️ Note: Use unscented, dye-free shaving cream for sensitive skin. Not taste-safe — keep supervision close.
| 🧠 Skills | Sense: Touch, Sight, Smell | Develops: Tactile tolerance, creative expression, color mixing (early science), fine motor control |
Tips for sensory play (that no one tells you)
Sensory play is supposed to be a little chaotic. That’s the whole point. Here are a few things to keep in mind before you dive in:
Take it outside when you can. Messy activities — cooked spaghetti, shaving cream, finger paint — are infinitely less stressful when cleanup is a garden hose away. Even if your yard is small, the outdoors changes the whole energy of the activity.
Safety first with small items. Any activity involving beads, marbles, small toys, or other choking hazards should be done with supervision. A good rule: if it fits through a toilet paper roll, it’s not safe for toddlers under 3 to use unsupervised.
Let them play their way. Your toddler may not do the ‘planned’ activity. The sensory bin you filled with dyed rice might become a dumping station, a hat, or a drum. That’s not them doing it wrong — that’s them doing it perfectly. Open-ended play is the goal, not a correct outcome.
You don’t have to spend money. The most effective sensory activities often cost nothing: a bin of dry beans, a bowl of water, or some flour and oil. Toddlers are not impressed by production value. They’re impressed by access to interesting things.
Regulate alongside them. Sensory play is calming for many toddlers, especially glitter bottles and water play, because it helps regulate the nervous system. If your child tends to get overstimulated, opt for slower-paced activities like a scented jar exploration or a single-texture bin before naptime.
It doesn’t need to last long. 15 minutes of genuine engagement is a win. You don’t need to extend activities past their natural endpoint. When they’re done, they’re done — and that’s fine.
A version of this post was published May 16, 2022. It has been updated.
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