Many kids will happily play in a mud puddle, squishing the ooey gooey goodness between their fingers and toes, but many kids, including my oldest son, have trouble with tactile sensitivity. Getting kids with tactile defensiveness to get their hands dirty can be a challenge, but there are many ways to encourage sensory exploration.
Even kids who enjoy getting messy can benefit from sensory exploration activities. In addition, parents should join in these activities with their children. Seeing their parents fearlessly stick their hands into a tub of goo can make it look a lot less scary.
Here are five easy sensory activities you and your child can do indoors or outdoors.
1. Playing with beans and grains. Dry textures are often easier for kids with tactile defensiveness to handle. Start out by putting differently textured and sized beans and grains (try unusual grains like tiny amaranth or knobby buckwheat) in a bin, tray or even just on the floor. Suspend all rules around mess-making, letting them grab and drop fistfuls, if they want. Providing toys like cars, animals or dump trucks can also encourage engagement with the material.
2. Make no-cook play dough. Kids can start by mixing dry ingredients with their hands, then kneading in the oil, water and food coloring. Some kids are allergic to artificial food colors, but natural ones are available. A simple recipe is 3 parts flour, 1 part salt, 1 part water and 1 TBSP oil per cup of flour.
3. Make volcanoes. Provide your child with some white vinegar and a box of baking soda. Set out a supply of cups and spoons and let them experiment! Although some children might try to avoid touching the bubbling mass, creating eruptions is so much fun, many will “forget themselves” and stick their hands right in.
4. Play with shaving cream. Squirt mounds of shaving cream on a tray. Hiding favorite toys like cars and trucks in the cream and ask you child to find them. If your child enjoys sensory play, go ahead and put tons of shaving cream on a tarp and let them roll around in it!
5. Make cornstarch goo. Also known as, ”ooblek”, mixing cornstarch and water is fascinating, but can be intimidating for kids with tactile defensiveness so parent participation is important. When you squeeze the mixture it acts like a solid. Stop squeezing and the mixture drips off the hands. There’s no rule to the correct proportions of cornstarch and water, simply start mixing and see what happens!
One final thought: Please, don’t worry about making a mess! Vacuums, towels and sponges will clean anything up. Facilitating sensory activities without confining rules will make for a much more satisfying experience!
Photo: MomAndKiddo
I still can’t bring myself to do sensory bins with food. Too much childhood inhibitions against playing with food from people who knew what hunger is.
I agree, growing up in the Western World, there are so many things I take for granted. While working in Toronto I had a Muslim client who was appalled that the school had her kids making macaroni pictures. She said she had to pray over the art and apologize for wasting the gift of food. To her it was a gift from God, nourishment for a family and not something to be taken lightly or wasted without thought. It made me reformulate things in my own mind.
That being said, there are lots of sensory activities you can engage in without using foods.