Sensory play refers to a form of play that can profoundly and significantly affect the growth and development of a child. It promotes and improves various aspects of their lives.
Some aspects of your toddler’s life that can be improved through sensory adventures and activities are fine motor skills, as well as emotional and social development. With that, it is safe to say that sensory play provides numerous benefits designed to help your child thrive, explore, and learn.
How Sensory Play Supports Childhood Development?
Sensory play will always play a vital role in childhood development as it lets kids explore the world surrounding them with the help of their senses. With this kind of play, you can engage your child’s senses, including sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, and use those in exploring, learning, and discovering things that are new to them.
Note that kids have this natural curiosity and eagerness to explore the world and environment surrounding them. Through sensory play, you give them the chance to do that in a structured and safe manner.
For instance, you can ask them to play with water and sand so they can experiment with various smells and textures and learn things such as cause and effect. Sensory play also offers benefits to kids, especially in terms of supporting their social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development.
It is also good for your toddler’s social and emotional development as it can give them a soothing and calming experience. This particular experience aids in controlling the emotions of kids and lowering their stress levels.
It also gives them the chance for cooperation and social interaction with other kids. This is a major help in boosting the social skills of your toddler. In addition, it can contribute to them forming strong and positive relationships with people around them, especially their peers.
Benefits of Sensory Adventures for Preschoolers
In general, here are the most remarkable benefits associated with giving your toddler or preschooler a wide range of sensory adventures:
Supports emotional expression and social interaction
There will be a major improvement in your child’s social skills if you keep engaging them in sensory play. It is through this type of play that they get to learn the basics of communicating with others and solving problems.
Say, for instance, you are letting your preschooler form shapes with their peers using a Play-Doh. Expect them to work together in creating different shapes, including circles, squares, and triangles.
By working together in forming the right shapes, you can expect your child to also cultivate empathy. The reason is that they get to adapt to the way other kids play and listen to their ideas.
You can also use sensory play to help your child learn the basics of regulating their emotions. All sensory toys have soothing or calming effects on kids as they control their internal discomfort brought on by boredom and restlessness.
For instance, there is what we call the weighted sensory toy, which can expose their joints and muscles to deep pressure. The result is that it builds a soothing effect on them. There are also sensory bottles that provide kids with something that they can concentrate on any time they feel anxious or overwhelmed.
Through various sensory activities, you can improve the ability of your child to focus since their attention will be on a certain activity. This can also enhance their ability to eliminate distractions and express their emotions whenever needed.
Develops pre-writing skills through fine motor engagement
Various sensory adventures for preschoolers also promote fine motor engagement, which aids in honing and cultivating their pre-writing skills. With the help of sensory pre-writing activities specifically designed for preschoolers, your child will have an engaging means of understanding the basics of forming letters.
These activities are also effective when it comes to working out their finger muscles and fine motor skills. As you engage such senses, it is possible for your child to establish connections in your brain capable of reinforcing how the letters’ shapes that they are creating, as well as the sounds and names of the formed letters, are related.
Once your child reaches preschool, it is necessary to give them several opportunities every day to keep themselves engaged in various fine motor activities and games. By giving them enough fine motor stimulation, they will be prepared to do writing tasks without feeling tired fast.
They will also learn how to grip pencils correctly, form letters accurately by beginning at the correct place and then moving in the correct direction, and form letters at appropriate and correct sizes. Your preschooler will also learn how to space letters properly and ensure that they are on the lines.
Enhances problem-solving abilities
Sensory play also requires toddlers to experiment using various objects. With that, they can hone their skills in making decisions and solving problems. Your toddler will be trained to look for solutions to problems and challenges that come their way – ex. ways to stick sand together.
In addition, sensory play can also strengthen your brain pathways’ nerve connections. It helps in strengthening memory skills while building a foundation designed to help them with more complex learning tasks soon. These include those linked to solving problems and language skills.
3 Recommended Sensory Toys for Preschoolers
To achieve all the benefits of sensory play for preschoolers, here are the most highly recommended sensory toys for them:
Playdough with Various Scents
One of the most popular sensory toys for kids right now is Playdough. It is good when it comes to exploring their olfactory and tactile senses as kids can manipulate them using their hands. They can pinch, pull, or squeeze the Playdough and form various shapes with it.
It is also something that you can create on your own. You may also buy premade ones. As much as possible, go for those that have various scents as this can further stimulate their senses while building their imagination and creativity.
Watercolor and Texture Painting Kit
Another interesting sensory toy that will surely ignite a preschooler’s love for art is the watercolor and texture painting kit. Your 4- or 5-year-old kid will surely love expressing their creativity and using their imagination as they use this kit. It is a good choice if what you want to hone in your kid is visual and tactile creativity.
It is also effective in polishing their fine motor skills. As much as possible, go for a kit that lets your preschooler explore textures. With that, you can definitely use the kit to hone their sense of touch.
Puzzle Sets with Different Textures
There are also puzzle sets featuring various textures that your preschooler can enjoy playing with. These puzzles are good for tactile discernment and cognitive stimulation. What makes these puzzle sets effective as Montessori educational toys is that aside from offering playtime, they can also improve hand-eye coordination.
You will also notice the puzzle sets boosting your preschooler’s problem-solving skills as well as their spatial reasoning skills. Another advantage is that it can keep your preschooler’s mind engaged, thereby keeping them away from electronic devices that are so addictive and can have negative effects when used excessively.
Conclusion
Preschoolers around 4 to 5 years old are at the stage wherein their curiosity, imagination, and love for learning are at their peak. Satisfy this love for learning by giving them sensory adventures that are truly appropriate for their age.
What’s great about sensory play is that it can also make them more adaptable and flexible in other aspects and areas of their life. If you engage their senses often and help them hone such skills, they will find the world less scary since they have already gathered the right tools necessary to handle anything that they encounter.