By Monkey Business Day Homes

Sensory Play Helps Build Brains

Mar 11, 2020 | 10:07 AM

Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are our five basic senses. These senses are how we gather information and perceive the world around us. Children are no exception to this. In fact, children’s brains are developing at such an amazing rate in the early years and a wide variety of sensory experiences can help bolster this development.

There is much more going on than meets the eye when children engage in sensory play. First of all, this type of play is fun! Most children have a natural disposition for sensory play and will gravitate to these types of activities. This is great news because sensory play can positively impact multiple areas of their development.

Language development is hugely affected by sensory play! Through the exploration of new sensory input children discover and find different ways to describe items in the world around them. They learn and become able to use words like rough, smooth, hot, warm, sweet, spicy etc. As a caregiver, you can further encourage language development by asking children open-ended questions about what they are experiencing. These are questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. For example, “What does it feel like?” or “Tell me about what you see/smell/hear/taste.” You can also speak out loud about what you are experiencing. “Wow, this food is spicy!” “This rock is very rough, but this other one is so smooth.”

Sensory activities have been shown to build nerve connections in the brain that will aid children in being able to complete more complex tasks in the future. This process triggers the innate drive that children have to push the boundaries of their current skills and knowledge base, a critical trait that will serve them well in their formal schooling years. Sensory exploration also supports children in using the ‘scientific method’ of observing, forming a hypothesis, experimenting and making conclusions.

Motor skills are built, in part, by sensory experiences. A child’s fine motor skills develop while they are using their pincer grasp to pinch and squeeze play dough. They are practicing their pre-writing skills when they use their fingertips to push paint around while finger painting. On the other hand, you can also initiate gross motor activities that stimulate a child’s senses while utilizing their large muscle groups.

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Many children find sensory play relaxing and almost therapeutic. These activities can help an otherwise very busy child to develop the ability to focus by blocking out other stimuli that may be overwhelming. In a loud and busy environment, sinking your hands into a bin of sand can be grounding.

While most sensory activities that we think of off the top of our heads incorporate mainly our sense of touch there are also some easy ways to engage our other senses as well. The use of essential oils or extracts into your play-doh or rice table will have children talking about what they smell while playing music in the background during a sensory activity or comparing the sounds of water falling on metal vs plastic will get their ears perking up. Serving different varieties of apples for snack will give you an opportunity to talk about what you’re tasting as well as the different colours of the apple peels.

Not all children love sensory play. Some do not enjoy the feeling of being sticky or wet or cold. That’s ok! Most sensory activities can be manipulated to meet the needs of all children. For instance, if a child shows disinterest or even distress when finger painting, we can put paint inside a sandwich bag and let them explore it that way. Sensory experiences should never be forced on a child because for some individuals it can be overwhelming to the point of being a traumatic experience and could potentially have a negative result upon their development.

Sensory play ideas can be easily found with a quick google search. They can range from relatively mess free to extremely messy, from very extravagant to relatively simple. While it may seem counterintuitive to many parents to provide messy sensory activities for their children it’s important to remember that the benefits children get from them far outweigh the inconvenience.