Touch and Feel - Sensory Activities at home!

We love touching and feeling new things - is it soft? Spiky? Smooth or maybe it makes a shake-a-shake noise? And doing activities like this don't need to cost the earth. Most you can do with things around the house. 

Here are a few ways we love to explore the sense of touch. 

Tissue Mystery Boxes - 

This idea from the Stay at Home Educator is to collect tissue boxes and put a sensory item inside - maybe a spiky ball, part of a feather boa, satin scraps, egg cartons or even some tissues themselves. For little kids let them feel and explore while you describe what they are experiencing. Talk about it being soft and smooth. You can put in their favourite toys, pieces of lego or even a small soft toy. Honestly, you can put ANYTHING you can fit! It's such an open ended way to play that can always be different. 

For older children get them to describe what they are feeling to you, ask them to use new words - maybe slippery, or is it rough? Prompt them to help develop their language skills. You can take it a step further and get them to GUESS what they are feeling! 

Tissue Discovery Box - 

This one is a variation of the first activity - from Baby Chakra. Fill an empty tissue box, or a wipes container with different scraps of materials - a scarf, a bracelet, socks, a loofah, a dish cloth (CLEAN ONES PLEASE!). Let your child pull them out, talk about what they are feeling and then start to teach how to pack away by encouraging them to fill the box back up! If you child is at a stage of development that they can understand a little more you can ask them to dig through and find the .... sock! 

https://www.babychakra.com/learn/180-sensory-boxes-for-my-toddler

Sensory Fabric Board - 

This idea from Some of This & Some of That is super quick and easy! Much like the other ideas, it's as simple as grabbing some textured pieces of material (feathers, sand paper, sponges, wool etc) and gluing it to a piece of cardboard. It's less of a mystery, because the pieces are there in front of you, but it's still a fun way to engage in sensory play. 

Sensory Toys -

Look, you knew this was coming.. CleverStuff Educational Toys has fantastic sensory toys. Here are a few of our favourites...