What are the benefits of sensory play? Why is it so important for kids to engage in sensory activities?
Before we explore the benefits, what is sensory play? We first need to understand what sensory processing is and how it affects our learning.
Essentially, sensory play is all about experiencing and exploring the world around us. We do that using our senses.
Our senses provide information to the brain, which become the building blocks to our understanding of the world and how it works. The more sensory experiences we are exposed to, the more we can organise them and attach meaning to them. This is called sensory processing.
This article is written with the help of Gillian Andrikos. Gillian is a registered Occupational Therapist and Primary School Teacher who has worked with young children with special needs for the last 13 years. Gillian is passionate about play and actively engaging kids in activities that facilitate their development as unique individuals.
1. Building Connections in the Brain
The main benefit of sensory play is that it supports healthy brain development. But how does it do that?
It may be easier to understand when you look at the world from a child point of view. When babies are born, they know nothing. How do they figure out what something is?
For example, you’ve been given a pot to bang on, you’ve never seen one before and need to learn more about it. How do you do that?
Touch – a pot is hard, smooth and cold. It’s heavy and the weight is evenly balanced.
Taste – A bit metallic
Sight – the pot is round with a flat bottom, it’s also hollow.
Sound – it makes a large noise when banged with a spoon or dropped on the floor. As they get older, and their language develops, they’ll recognize that the word “pot” is associated with this object.
Smell – what does it smell like?
All of these elements provide sensory input and transmit signals to the brain that uses these signals to understand what a pot is.
The next time you’re given a pot, even if it’s a different size or color. You’ll soon learn that these two different pots share a lot of the same elements. You’ll then be able to categorize these sensations as something you experience with pots.
2. Sensory Play and Problem Solving Skills
What happens when…?
This is a fantastic way to encourage children to engage in some problem solving. All you need to do is give your child a problem and various tools. You’ll love seeing their brains work as they try to find a solution.
Asking “What happens when” is a way to encourage kids to formulate ideas about what happens when you play with objects and then try out their ideas.
3. Language Development
Language naturally develops with sensory activities when a parent or teacher is actively involved in the play. Talking about what the children are experiencing gives them the words to understand and communicate.
There are also more aspects of communication that the children will pick up on such as non-verbal cues. For example, facial expressions or gestures to request something or comment on what is happening.
Related: 10+ Sensory Activities for Babies
4. Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills refer to activities that require the use of the hands, fingers, and thumb in coordination with the eyes. These skills require a certain amount of strength and dexterity to complete tasks.
Examples include:
- Cutting with scissors
- Drawing or writing
- Doing up buttons or zips
- Feeding ourselves
Sensory play involves a lot of fine motor skills. Picking up rainbow rice, or rolling out playdough are great ways to strengthen little fingers.
Related: The Ultimate List of Fine Motor Activities for Kids.
5. Coordination and body Awareness
The two senses, vestibular and proprioception are essential for coordination and body awareness.
Proprioception – is the sense of self-movement and body position. In other words, knowing where your body (arms, legs etc) are in space and in relation to the rest of your body.
A common example of proprioception is being able to touch your nose even while your eyes are closed.
Vestibular – sense of balance and spatial orientation, in order to coordinate movement with balance.
In other words, it helps you to keep your balance, even when there are changing conditions. Such as when you’re jumping or running.
Related: 25 Indoor Energy Burners for Kids
6. Introduction to Mathematical concepts.
Sensory bins are particularly good for this because you’ll want to include a variety of containers to play with. Concepts such as volume or capacity are explored when transferring sensory bin fillers from one container to another.
For example, pouring rainbow rice from a jug into a cup. The cup overflows because it doesn’t have the same capacity as the jug.
Hence you could also start to learn that it takes one jug to fill 2 or more cups.
You can also create sensory bins that have a mathematical base to it. Such as this Counting Carrots Sensory Bin, which focuses on number recognition and number matching in addition to all of the other benefits of sensory play.
7. Social-Emotional Skills
Children learn from us and one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. This is called Social Learning Theory.
This is yet another reason to actively engage with children during play activities. They will see how you behave and copy it.
You an use social learning to teach children to:
- Share
- Take turns
- Play within the rules
You can also use sensory activities to encourage mindfulness. Mindfulness is about being focused on one thing. Paying full attention to what you are doing right now. This doesn’t have to be meditation, which is what many adults think of when they hear the word mindfulness.
For children, it just means being given the space and time to enjoy what they are doing without being rushed to another activity.
Mindfulness activities have a lot of benefits for kids, including emotional regulation, lowering stress and anxiety, and improving overall emotional health.
Related: 10+ Sensory Bins for Toddlers
8. Sensory Play for Picky Eaters
Sensory play is beneficial for all children as it promotes development and learning. For some children (particularly those who have differences in the way they process and respond to sensory information) sensory play can be used strategically to target development of certain skills.
For example, children with food aversions often benefit from structured messy-play involving food outside of mealtimes.
Hands-on play with food, where there is no pressure to eat or even taste the food, can help the child become more familiar with the textures and smells involved. This may encourage them to be more adventurous at mealtimes.
An example of this is a Frozen Peas Sensory Bin. Where you can turn a small bag of frozen peas into three different toddler activities, none of which involve the pressure of eating any.
As you can see, there are so many different benefits of sensory play. It’s also easy to incorporate into your daily life. Don’t get overwhelmed by the science, just start playing with your kids today.
