Toddlers love using their senses to discover their surroundings. Play that piques a child's senses, or sensory play, improves cognitive abilities and shapes their learning about the outside world, and helps them explore the world in a better way.
Toddlers love using their senses to explore the world around them. Squeezing, squelching, twisting, splashing, pinching, knocking, running, scooping, shaking, falling, streaking, tossing, spraying, and oozing are all things toddlers love to do. You might frequently be tempted to end this activity early since it seems (and maybe) messy. Yet, sensory play for babies, or play that appeals to all a child's senses, plays a crucial part in their growth and development. Your youngster develops cognitive abilities and learns about the outside world through it, which is how you can benefit from sensory play.
Sensory Play
Sensory play is any play that appeals to your child's senses. Touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste are all included in this. Movement, balance, and situational awareness are also included. A child's senses are not entirely formed when they are born. As infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers investigate their surrounding sensory environment, they become more mature with time. Each new sensory encounter they have expands the structure of their brain by creating new nerve connections.
Through play, babies pick up new information and create new neural connections. Also, as babies learn to respond to various stimuli, sensory play improves language development and helps them understand more about the world around them. Baby can enjoy essential kids sensory activities such as feeling various things and textures and hearing how various materials produce various noises.
Toddlers' Benefits from Sensory Play
There are several benefits of sensory play. Toddlers typically start to try to perform tasks on their own as their cognitive capacities grow. Toddlers will be encouraged in their discovery by games that evaluate light and dark and sort colors as they understand ideas like time and opposites.
Exploration, curiosity, problem-solving, and creativity are all encouraged through sensory play. It promotes the formation of neural connections in the brain and promotes linguistic and motor skill development. Several advantages could go unrecognized, such as improving concentration and distraction-resistance skills.
In general, everything can be used for sensory exercises because they are such a crucial aspect of childhood. For sensory play, nature is frequently your best friend! Different materials with various textures can add variety to themed sensory bins.
To help your child develop language abilities simultaneously with their sensory exploration, ask them pertinent questions. Encourage your child to use descriptive language in the discussion.
For instance, inquire as follows:
- It feels what?
- How does it appear?
- Is the smell pleasant?
- Do you enjoy how it sounds?
Olfactory and Taste Sensory Play
Olfactory refers to the sense of smell. Olfactory and Taste Sensory Play has a direct connection to flavor. While it might be challenging to tell when a child is using their senses of taste and smell, there are sure tell-tale signs, such as when they sniff flowers or taste-test their brand-new building blocks. Kids can nurture these senses with games that foster the investigation of smell and taste.
Sensory play allows your children to become more flexible and adaptable in other areas of their life. The world becomes much less frightening for them because they have developed the appropriate sensory tools for toddlers to handle whatever comes their way. After all, they have engaged their senses and developed these skills.
The many elements of sensory play correspond to the five senses, plus two more senses relating to alignment and proprioception.
Now, let us understand it better with the help of different activities.
- Tactile Games
This type of play comes to mind first when we talk about sensory play. Children engage in tactile play using their hands to explore an object. Children may learn about pressure, temperature, vibrations, and more through tactile play.
Feel free to experiment and engage in messy play kids sensory activities. Sensory learning is a terrific opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your child and make enjoyable experiences that they will never forget.
- Food
- Shaving lotion
- Baking flour with hair gel
- Toy dough
- Linen balls
- Water experiment with various temps
- Vestibular System
Jumping, hanging, swinging, and rolling can help your youngster establish balance. This is due to the vestibular system, which is housed in the inner ear, and responsible for balance and movement. By stimulating numerous ear receptors, placing a child's head in as many different positions as possible helps build the vestibular system.
- Sensory Proprioception Play
Consider how your legs and arms can move without requiring your attention. That is because of proprioception. Jumping, pulling, and pushing all assist your younger one in gaining body-spatial awareness. Through proprioception, children learn their physical position in the universe and how their limbs interact with the rest of their bodies.
- Audio-Sensory Games
Boom, bang, and clash! Although auditory play may not be your preferred, it can help your child learn to distinguish between sounds and improve their hearing. You can observe how your youngster explores sound through play if you give them a wooden spoon and a pot. Warning: This may be irritating.
- Visual-spatial Play
The visual-spatial system is intricately linked to the vestibular and auditory systems. Your child's eyesight will grow with visual play. Consider how your child reacts when you fly the "airplane spoon" into their mouth. Playing with and recognizing patterns and colors is an enjoyable and exciting technique to promote visual sensory play.
Benefits of Sensory Play for Children
The benefits of sensory play are not just limited to these. Here are some other advantages of sensory play.
- Benefits in preschool
Children in preschool frequently engage in more independent exploration and linguistic growth using sensory school kits. This sensory development in early childhood will be further encouraged by playing musical instruments and making and constructing diverse shapes from different objects and materials. This is how any preschool sensory activity can benefit a kid.
However, be creative. Give your children a new food or try a new activity to change things up and keep things exciting and enjoyable for them. For instance, Messer suggests trying something a little different during bath time. Whether that means showing your infant how splashing feels or using a different washcloth to demonstrate a different texture.
- Aids in language development through sensory play
Your child will naturally develop language skills. Messer says, "A child is experiencing their environment and expressing emotions, wants, and needs in different ways when they participate in any kind of play, including sensory play." This directly impacts their language development in a positive manner.
- Your child will learn to describe what they are doing and how it feels by using the senses
Eventually, they start using more descriptive language to communicate. This is the most significant benefit that’s pretty well visible.
- Develops fine motor skills
Sensory play can help your child learn how to tie a shoe, write, and zip a coat. Your child improves their coordination and use of small muscle groups through tactile play that emphasizes building, pouring, and mixing. According to Young, "tactile play is a great way to address and focus children's fine motor skills in a fun way." Your child's fine motor skills can be strengthened by letting them freely explore small sensory items like rice, slime, dry pasta, and dry cereal.
- Improves your child’s ability
To sit, crawl, jump, and run—all of which require your child to use large muscles in their arms, legs, and core (stomach area)—through gross motor activities. There is a compelling reason to coordinate sensory play. Take a step back and allow your child to experiment and explore independently.
- Finger painting is an excellent activity for infants and toddlers, even though it may be messy
If you are doing this with a young child, help them paint their hands and feet with a soft brush before making prints on paper. Make a cute keepsake out of their prints if you are feeling artistic. It can help toddlers express their emotions while also providing them with a relaxing activity. Set up a space with paper and finger paints to get started. You can either lay down an old blanket or sheet for the child to work on or do this outside on a nice day to reduce the mess inside the house. After that, let your child dip, mix, and swirl as they want.
- Food plays
When attempting to stop your child from playing with food, think twice. Playing with dry cereal or noodles can help them develop their senses. You can start teaching your child about food when he or she is four to six months old, whether touching food or simply observing family members eat. Therefore, they learn about texture, taste, and smell, and also let them taste, squish, and smear.
- Playing outside when the weather gets warmer, take your kids to the yard to play
This is especially beneficial for young children. Sensory play includes playing in the sandbox, running around, or even rolling in the grass. Bike riding, hopscotch, and swinging can benefit older children.
- Shower time
Topping off the tub for shower time has a more significant number of advantages than simply getting your youngster clean. Splashing, playing with toys, and even the bubbles can all be sensory experiences.
- Listening to music can benefit your child's development even if you listen to music
It can improve their vocabulary, improve their mood, and even strengthen their coordination. You can use pots and wooden spoons as homemade musical instruments with your kids instead of just listening to songs.
- Your child's participation in sensory play should not be limited
Your child should not be limited or kept away from any kind of sensory play activities on a daily basis. You can continuously try out different activities to experiment with your kid and see what interests him/her the most.
- Find ways to include more senses
Engaging your child's balance system can be as simple as having them sit on a pillow while they play with their blocks. Think about ways to enhance sensory experiences as a parent or caregiver.
- Avoid overthinking it
You do not have to buy any special equipment or items. There are numerous things you can do already. Many of these items are already in your home. You simply need to think about different ways to indulge your kid in those activities.
Theorists
If it comes to child psychology, Jean Piaget has superstar status. He was possibly the original proponent of sensory play theory, contending that play encompassed more than we currently understand. According to his theory of sensory play, also called developmental period theory, sensory play comprises a systematic learning process that may even be identified In phases.
Piaget argued that for children's cognitive growth to be guided, there must be environmental stimuli and experiences. He proposed that youngsters absorb and store new information for later use through sensory play. He said this is why sensory play is important for a child's brain development.
Bottom line
Now that you know what is sensory play, you must have now understood how important sensory play is for your kids. Encourage your child when you see them playing with odd objects like paper towel rolls, mugs, straws, and toys. Little children can use whatever they can to investigate their surroundings. Also, you can encourage their senses the best by letting them act on their impulses.
