“You can teach a student a lesson for a day, but if you teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” Clay P. Bedford, the late President of Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics and an advocate of bringing technology to the classroom, said.
Children are sponges eager to absorb every ounce of the world around them. Thus, we, as caregivers, must encourage their sound development by providing them with the tools for success.
Sensory play activities for toddlers are one method that boosts children’s development and one way through which we at IPSAA Centre, the best daycare in Noida, provide creative play and visual stimulation.
Sensory play arouses a child’s sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. Oftentimes, sensory play activities can stimulate more than one sense at the same time, paving the road for sensory maturity.
What exactly do sensory play activities for toddlers accomplish, and how can you, as parents, ensure your child is getting enough of them? These questions and more are what IPSAA Centre aims to answer through this blog.
Types of Sensory Play Activities for Toddlers
Visual Sensory Play (Sight)
Visual sensory play encourages your child’s exploration of colours, textures and shapes. In turn, this type of play focuses on your child’s visual stimulation, permitting the development of their visual tracking, colour recognition and attention to detail.
When searching for “play schools near me”, make sure that your child is getting enough visual stimulation through these visual sensory play activities for toddlers.
- Colour Sorting: A simple activity where kids sort objects based on their colours. Differentiating red buttons from blue buttons, for example, not only teaches children to concentrate and match colours, but it is the first building block that helps children excel in Mathematics, according to early childhood development expert, Maria Montessori.
- Light Tables: An educational tool that offers an interactive and visually stimulating learning environment. These light tables introduce children to colour mixing in addition to promoting their fine motor skills through allowing them to experiment with overlapping colours–thereby blending them–and manipulating blocks or shapes provided on light tables.
- Bubbles: Providing both visual stimulation and fun, bubbles are an often overlooked yet straightforward way to capture children’s attention and encourage them to track the bubbles as they float and change colour in the light.
- Glittery/ColourfulSensory Bins: Sensory bins are visually and mentally engaging, as they encourage creative play as well as provide distinct colours, textures and shapes for children to discover. Under supervision, children can explore these sensory bins to find hidden toys and treasures and even pick out shapes and trinkets to make their own art on separate papers.
Auditory Sensory Play (Hearing)
Auditory sensory play involves listening to and processing sounds. Through this exposure to sounds, your child develops their ability to differentiate between them as well as grow their language skills.
- Musical Instruments: Easy-to-play instruments such as drums or maracas allow children to create sounds. This will help them recognize and coordinate with rhythms and understand causation to a degree through hitting a drum, for example, and hearing its beat.
- Sound Bottles: These are bottles filled with diverse materials like beans, rice and otherwise. Children will shake these bottles and try to identify what’s inside, which further grows their ability to differentiate between sounds.
- Sounds of Nature: Even with the surge of technology and invention of new, creative ways to help children develop and progress, nature is still one of the best teachers.
By using tools that imitate natural sounds, we can familiarize children with them and help them learn more about the world around them.
Also, when the weather permits, IPSAA Centre, the best daycare in Noida, makes sure to schedule outings to give children the chance to have a more hands-on experience with the world.
Gustatory Sensory Play (Taste)
Gustatory sensory play activities for toddlers are vital in encouraging the exploration of tastes and textures. These activities can help your child develop good eating habits and nurture a positive relationship with food. It’s important to heed a child’s unique gustatory threshold to avoid forcing an aversion to certain foods.
- Taste-testing Different Foods: According to a publicationwritten by early care educators, introducing fruits, vegetables and other nutrition-rich foods can positively impact children’s diets, which thereby could help improve their health. Therefore, by integrating well-thought-out taste-testing into a child’s life, not only will you be utilizing a type of sensory play, but your child will also be learning healthy eating habits for the future.
- Edible Sensory Play (or Edible Sensory Bins): Like colourful sensory bins, caretakers can choose to make ediblesensory bins that not only offer necessary visual stimulation but also a unique opportunity to consume food items hidden within these sensory bins.
For edible sensory play, including rice, beans, whipped cream and even cereal in a sensory bin provides a multi-sensory experience for your child.
- Cooking Activities: Preparing food is a rich experience that engages multiple senses at once. Touching the different ingredients, smelling them, becoming accustomed to their tastes and the sound of cooking all contribute to a unique activity guaranteed to engage your child’s attention and give them a sense of accomplishment.
Olfactory Sensory Play (Smell)
This type of sensory play allows your child to explore and identify scents. In addition to scent-infused sensory bins, the following can serve as olfactory sensory play activities for toddlers.
- Scented Playdough: Playdough infused with essential oils can help kids focus on the unique smells and distinguish them. By encouraging them to talk about their favourites, you would also be helping them develop their language skills by allowing them to put their feelings into words.
- Smelling Jars: Similar to scented playdough, smelling jars can be used to grow your child’s ability to identify smells. These jars are easy to set up. All you need to do is fill empty jars with spices, herbs, fruits or otherwise, close them up, then encourage your child to open each jar, sniff and recognize what’s inside.
Tactile Sensory Play (Touch)
This involves exploring objects through touch, which is essential for developing fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and sensory processing.
- Playdough: Rolling, squeezing, stretching and otherwise playing with playdough allows children to enhance their fine motor skills. Moreover, they can use it for creative play which engages their imagination and improves their story-telling skills.
- Texturized Materials: Whether it be through texturized picture books or objects, stimulating a child’s sense of touch allows them to practice matching, classification and sorting based on textures, which is important for their cognitive development.
- Sand Play: Not only does the manipulation of sand give children the opportunity to work on their motor skills, but it also gives them the opportunity to work on creative playthrough imagining and re-enacting diverse scenarios in a sand pit or grabbing lumps of sand in a sensory bin.
Proprioceptive Sensory Play (Body Awareness)
This refers to activities that help children understand their body movements and their interactions with their environment. Physical activities in general are extremely important for your child’s development. Thus, we at IPSAA Centre, the best daycare in Noida, pay it special attention and work tirelessly on promoting it.
- Climbing Activities and Heavy Work Play: These activities help children build up their strength and confidence. In addition, they will develop a sense of awareness and start to realize that their actions have effects on the world around them.
- Pillow or Blanket Forts: Building a fort develops your child’s muscles and gives them the opportunity to be creative and imaginative. Moreover, it allows them to attempt to solve problems by making them try to figure out how to make the fort hold. It’s a physical, mental and creative activity that is well worth the effort (and the mess!)
Vestibular Sensory Play (Balance and Movement)
This type of sensory play focuses on regulating balance and spatial orientation. It helps children better control their movements, maintain their posture and navigate their environment. Some examples of sensory play activities for toddlers include swinging, rolling and spinning.
Play schools near me, such as IPSAA Centre, must encourage this type of sensory play in order for your child’s benefit in the future.
Effects of Sensory Play Activities for Toddlers
After going over the types of sensory play, it’s vital to understand why IPSAA Centre, the best daycare in Noida, goes above and beyond to ensure that these activities are readily available for your little ones.
Cognitive Development
Sensory play involves multiple senses at once, allowing for their timely and simultaneous development. According to experts from Michigan State University, children experience the world through their senses first through observing, smelling, tasting, touching and listening to everything going on around them.
Then, these experiences become memories, which children will draw on when attempting to solve problems, think critically, logically, or creatively and to understand causality.
Motor Skills
According to a study by Cleveland Clinic, rolling, swinging, playing with playdough and exploring sensory bins are sensory play activities for toddlers that promote the development of fine motor skills (dexterity and hand strength, which will help in everyday things such as tying shoes and writing) as well as gross motor skills (balance and coordination).
Language Development and Emotional Regulation
Sensory play activities for toddlers give children the opportunity to practice their narrative skills, which in turn promotes their acquisition of novel words and expressions. A study by Children’s Factory presented that children who engage in sensory play have a 25 percent increase in vocabulary.
Moreover, that same study showed that sensory play gives children the chance to learn to communicate verbally and non-verbally, which helps them with emotional regulation. This is likely because sensory play gives children the chance to explore their emotions and exhibit better control over them.
Parental Involvement
If you are searching for “play schools near me” or for the best daycare in Noida, look no further than IPSAA Centre, where we are not only acutely aware of the impact of sensory play activities for toddlers but also provide tips for the easy integration of creative play and sensory play at home.
- Set Up a Sensory Bin: Easy to set up and extremely beneficial for your child, sensory bins are one of the first activities you can use to engage your child’s senses as they explore and uncover hidden objects. If you’re not sure what can go into a sensory bin, find hereideas to create your very own!
- Use Water Play: Water play is a multi-sensory activity that has an added bonus–it’s therapeutic, according to a blogby Community Sports & Therapy Center. Pouring, scooping, and splashing promote fine motor skills and are a ton of fun!
- Encourage Creative Play with Playdough: Playdough and slimes are readily available, and they provide a tactile experience that promotes relaxation and focus.
- Explore Nature: Take your child outdoors and let them explore the world. This will not only enhance their senses but also deepen the bond you share! Moreover, if you and your child collect leaves, acorns, sticks, rocks and flowers, you can include these natural items in your sensory bin!
- Use Edible Sensory Play: Encourage your child to explore different flavours, or set up edible sensory bins, to expand their food preferences.
- Encourage Movement and Balance: Take your child to parks or outside and let them run wild! Encourage their movement to enhance their coordination and balance.
Sensory play activities for toddlers are no doubt an integral part of your little one’s childhood that promotes their cognitive, motor, language and emotional development.
Through the diverse types of sensory play and creative play, your child will not only be actively learning and cultivating their curiosity, but they will also be making fun memories that you can always fondly look back to.
Always remember when searching for ‘play schools near me’: We at IPSAA Centre, the best daycare in Noida, always aim to kindle curiosity in your little ones by inspiring them to be excellent creative explorers. Discover our services, programmes and resources by contacting us today!