Why is Sensory exploration so important?
Think of how long your child has been seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and tasting…their whole lives! Children are wired to receive and utilize sensory input from day one. This is why children will dive in hands first, exploring a new substance. The senses are their most familiar, most basic way to explore, process, and come to understand new information.
This is why we must allow young children to learn through experience, not just lecture. These children need to use their senses and be engaged in meaningful experiences. As we talk with them about what they are observing and sensing, we give them new language tools to connect with these more familiar sensory tools, building language as well as supporting cognitive concepts specific to the experience.
Now, the flip side to this equation is important to remember as well. Just as children learn through their senses, they also are developing the ability to use those senses and are building the neurological pathways associated with each one. With added sensory experiences, combined with the scaffolding of adults and peers, children become more perceptive. Their sensory intake and processing becomes more acute. As they are better able to use their senses, they are then better able to learn through their senses.
We often think of the sensory play as being a tactile activity, which it largely is, but the other senses come into play as well! The tapping sounds of popcorn kernels hitting the bin, the pungent smell of baking soda and vinegar at work, the sight of separating colors as tinted water, oil, and syrup are mixed together are all sensory experiences that can be tapped at the sensory table. Taste sometimes finds less desirable ways to sneak in during sensory play as well, though taste-tests can also be properly planned as fantastic sensory experiences!
This is why we must allow young children to learn through experience, not just lecture. These children need to use their senses and be engaged in meaningful experiences. As we talk with them about what they are observing and sensing, we give them new language tools to connect with these more familiar sensory tools, building language as well as supporting cognitive concepts specific to the experience.
Now, the flip side to this equation is important to remember as well. Just as children learn through their senses, they also are developing the ability to use those senses and are building the neurological pathways associated with each one. With added sensory experiences, combined with the scaffolding of adults and peers, children become more perceptive. Their sensory intake and processing becomes more acute. As they are better able to use their senses, they are then better able to learn through their senses.
We often think of the sensory play as being a tactile activity, which it largely is, but the other senses come into play as well! The tapping sounds of popcorn kernels hitting the bin, the pungent smell of baking soda and vinegar at work, the sight of separating colors as tinted water, oil, and syrup are mixed together are all sensory experiences that can be tapped at the sensory table. Taste sometimes finds less desirable ways to sneak in during sensory play as well, though taste-tests can also be properly planned as fantastic sensory experiences!
Benefits of sensory play
Sensory Play Supports Scientific Thinking
Sensory play is really part of the scientific process. Whether out loud or within the internal dialogue of the mind, children have developed a question, leading them to investigate– by grabbing, smelling, listening, rubbing, staring, licking , what have you! They are using their senses to collect data and from that, attempt to answer their own questions. Whether or not young children are always able to verbally communicate this process, it is still a valid exercise in scientific inquiry.
For example, when discussing the need for warm clothes in the winter time, we can simply tell children about it, or we can have them hold ice cubes, one in a bare hand, and one in a gloved hand, let them really feel the difference and then meaningfully attach a verbal discussion to the sensory experience.
Sensory Play Supports Your Child’s Confidence and Self Esteem
As one of the truest open-ended activities, sensory play provides an opportunity for every child to succeed. No matter whether you are gifted or delayed, learning a new language or mastering your first, you can’t really fail with a bin full of beans or a ball of playdough. Children who struggle to succeed or who are apprehensive about failure often find solace in sensory play. The simple act of pouring water or running fingers through rice is often cathartic and calming to many children who may be struggling emotionally. It can soothe the nervous child, distract the homesick child, and serve as an outlet for the angry child. For children with special needs and sensory integration disorders, sensory play may be particularly therapeutic. (Please note that we must also avoid over-stimulation in many sensitive children. Special attention must also be paid to children with sensory integration disorder and properly recognizing their thresholds.)
Sensory Play Supports Language Skills
Playing with different types of textures and tasting and objects while you narrate helps your child build new ways of talking about the world. Suddenly rice is more than just rice – it’s smooth or slippery or blue or something that you can scoop or dump or pour. Water isn't just wet, it can be slippery with bubbles, or cold and translucent (when frozen), or clear and still, or red and blue and purple with a little food coloring added.
Sensory Play Supports Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are those that require the ability to use and coordinate small muscle groups. Fine motor skills are important for writing, shoe-tying, buttoning and zipping, among other things. Sensory play often involves using and building fine motor skills by exploring things using pinching, pouring and lacing movements.
Sensory Play is Calming
You may have noticed that your child is calmer after bath time or that after a particularly rough session of jumping around the room, banging into furniture, crashing onto his bed or into pillows, your child seems more grounded.
He probably is. This type of sensory play is calming for kids. It helps them regulate their internal discomfort, whether that discomfort was boredom, restlessness or some other type of agitation.
Sensory play is really part of the scientific process. Whether out loud or within the internal dialogue of the mind, children have developed a question, leading them to investigate– by grabbing, smelling, listening, rubbing, staring, licking , what have you! They are using their senses to collect data and from that, attempt to answer their own questions. Whether or not young children are always able to verbally communicate this process, it is still a valid exercise in scientific inquiry.
For example, when discussing the need for warm clothes in the winter time, we can simply tell children about it, or we can have them hold ice cubes, one in a bare hand, and one in a gloved hand, let them really feel the difference and then meaningfully attach a verbal discussion to the sensory experience.
Sensory Play Supports Your Child’s Confidence and Self Esteem
As one of the truest open-ended activities, sensory play provides an opportunity for every child to succeed. No matter whether you are gifted or delayed, learning a new language or mastering your first, you can’t really fail with a bin full of beans or a ball of playdough. Children who struggle to succeed or who are apprehensive about failure often find solace in sensory play. The simple act of pouring water or running fingers through rice is often cathartic and calming to many children who may be struggling emotionally. It can soothe the nervous child, distract the homesick child, and serve as an outlet for the angry child. For children with special needs and sensory integration disorders, sensory play may be particularly therapeutic. (Please note that we must also avoid over-stimulation in many sensitive children. Special attention must also be paid to children with sensory integration disorder and properly recognizing their thresholds.)
Sensory Play Supports Language Skills
Playing with different types of textures and tasting and objects while you narrate helps your child build new ways of talking about the world. Suddenly rice is more than just rice – it’s smooth or slippery or blue or something that you can scoop or dump or pour. Water isn't just wet, it can be slippery with bubbles, or cold and translucent (when frozen), or clear and still, or red and blue and purple with a little food coloring added.
Sensory Play Supports Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are those that require the ability to use and coordinate small muscle groups. Fine motor skills are important for writing, shoe-tying, buttoning and zipping, among other things. Sensory play often involves using and building fine motor skills by exploring things using pinching, pouring and lacing movements.
Sensory Play is Calming
You may have noticed that your child is calmer after bath time or that after a particularly rough session of jumping around the room, banging into furniture, crashing onto his bed or into pillows, your child seems more grounded.
He probably is. This type of sensory play is calming for kids. It helps them regulate their internal discomfort, whether that discomfort was boredom, restlessness or some other type of agitation.
Are you interested in offering your child some activities for sensory play at home but don't know where to start, haven't made the time to do it, or need to add something new to your options?
Check out the High 5 Make & Take Sensory Workshops - come make your own awesome sensory materials or have them made for you and delivered! More info here!
Check out the High 5 Make & Take Sensory Workshops - come make your own awesome sensory materials or have them made for you and delivered! More info here!
