This week the sensory team would like to show you some simple sensory play ideas for you to try at home.
Sensory play has many benefits for our children :
It can be fun and engaging
Help with mindfulness and calming
Encourage exploration and investigation
Develop the senses
Promote fine a gross motor skills
Provide practical learning experiences
Play dough
Below is a simple playdough recipe that you could make at home.
You could add texture and smell to the playdough to suit the needs of your child
Some things you could add are glitter, sequins, sand, food colouring, peppermint essence, vanilla essence, ginger or other spices.
Feely Board or Book
You could use items at home to create a feely board or book for your child to explore with different textures.
You could also add smells using essential oils or essences
Examples of things you could use are:
Sponges
Cloths
Wool
Sandpaper
Tinfoil
Feathers
Toothbrush
Here are some examples of homemade feely boards and books
Tactile balloons
These balloons are a good for tactile sensory input, Fine motor skills, to engage the mind and body or to calm the mind.
The balloons can be filled with whatever you like to provide different textures and sensory input.
Some things you could fill your balloon with are:
Rice, flour, sand, pasta, playdough, seeds, salt, sugar, shower gel, hair gel
For the best results blow your balloon up and release the air to stretch the balloon then use a funnel to fill them
You could get your child to draw funny faces or pictures on the balloons to decorate them
There are lots of other sensory play ideas online or on Pinterest that you could try at home here are some of our favourites:
We hope you have fun exploring
The sensory team Ashley and Joanne