Whether you hear the term being used within the nursery setting, see it online whilst researching fun activities or you’ve heard it being mentioned in the health care environment, sensory play is a term you might hear a lot when you have a young child. Sensory play activities can help with a child’s development throughout their early childhood education.
One of the best aspects of sensory play is its inclusivity. From the moment a child is born they can start participating in rich sensory play experiences. Through simple activities like feeling different textures, engaging in water play or listening to soothing sounds, infants and toddlers start building essential connections in their brains to support future development and learning.
Our nurseries at Grandir UK ensure children learn through sensory exploration with a range of emotional development sensory play activities across our nursery curriculum designed to support their cognitive growth and development of cognitive skills. This blog will explore the benefits of sensory play and why incorporating it into a child’s life is so important.
What is sensory play?
Children learn and discover the world around them from a very young age through their senses: touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell. Sensory play is any activity that stimulates your child’s senses. These activities encourage exploration, discovery and learning, which are so important in child development.
Sensory activities cover many fun activities such as finger painting, play dough, making and baking and simply going outside to explore in nature with your child. These experiences and activities support your child’s development as they observe, experiment with complex tasks and develop problem solving skills through play.
What are the benefits of sensory play?
Sensory play is crucial to children’s development as each child engages with the world around them every day. From birth to around five years old, children are going through a rapid rate of brain development – 90% of a child’s brain is developed before they even start school, which is why some people say small children are like sponges!
Here are some of the key benefits of sensory play:
It helps build social skills
At Grandir UK nurseries, we provide our children with a wide range of group sensory activities each day, providing children with the perfect opportunity for social interaction, helping to build social skills with other children. Sensory play includes looking, touching and talking about different objects or texture within an activity. Children may join in on an activity together and use descriptive words to talk about what they are doing – helping them with communication and language development alongside developing their ability to play with other children.
Expanding on this, James, the Nursery Manager at Kiddi Caru Day Nursery and Preschool in Abington Grove, shared the benefits of sensory play he has observed: “We have found sensory play plays a crucial role in helping new children settle. It provides them with an opportunity for social interaction with both their peers and practitioners allowing them to explore thoughts and ideas. In turn, this supports our children’s language and vocabulary development.”
It encourages motor skill development
Sensory play and activities provide a wonderful opportunity for children to develop their fine motor skills during tactile play. These activities include holding, gripping, squeezing, throwing and pushing objects including pens, paint brushes and natural materials. Outside children develop their gross motor skills as they run, jump, climb and build more awareness and control of their body. Learning and practicing these simple skills is incredibly important for a child’s senses and cognitive development.
It helps with language development
With sensory activities, even babies will engage all their senses and start to babble with enjoyment. Sensory experiences with musical instruments and singing is a really fun way to support babies and children’s language development as they listen and join in. Other sensory play provides children with the opportunity to talk, with each other and our nursery team, as the child’s senses are stimulated by the textures, smell and shape of objects they are engaged with.
Helps develop creativity
Sensory play supports babies and children’s learning, sensory development and cognitive growth, stimulating multiple senses with different stimuli, providing lots of opportunity to develop their creativity and encourage creative thinking. The opportunities in sensory play really are endless!
Although the main aim of sensory play is to provide experiences to help develop all five senses, it is fun to engage with your child and create new, fun ideas for play. You can create anything, from freezing various objects, even natural materials, in ice to cool down in summer, to pumpkin seed sensory bags and under the sea themed water play, there are many fun ideas to explore.
Examples of sensory play:
At Grandir UK, our nurseries follow a wide curriculum that provides every child with a fun early childhood education and gives them the building blocks to continue into primary school. The benefits of sensory play in the Early Years are easy to see when you witness your child explore, engage and develop skills each day. Our curriculum is full of play based learning activities with many ways for babies and every young child to explore, learn and develop all the senses. Some sensory play is exciting and stimulating and some sensory play can have a calming effect. Here are some fun sensory play ideas:
Discussing the fun sensory play activities that are incorporated at Kiddi Caru Day Nursery and Preschool in Abington Grove, Nursery Manager James stated: “We have a sensory activity each day, which we mix up and change daily. One day it will be gloop, the next flour, the next slime. Each time we change it up making it an opportunity to learn!.”
Please note: It is important to make sure that any activities you do are suitable for the age of your child. For babies, please ensure small objects are avoided to eliminate all potential choking hazards.
We recognise that children are powerful learners from birth and that they not only learn through play, but that play has such an important role in a child’s wellbeing and development, that it is part of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).
Our combination of child and adult initiated play-based activities, experiences and opportunities are fundamental to our Grandir UK curriculum, which supports our company mission and vision to provide exceptional education and childcare and to inspire lifelong learning by recognising and realising the unique potential in every child.
We aim to create a nurturing and inspiring learning environment full of awe and wonder where children feel safe; where they can explore, experiment, discover and ultimately flourish in their Early Years.
Book your visit to your local Grandir UK nursery today
We are committed to providing excellent Early Years education and childcare. We provide nurturing and supportive childcare with highly qualified and experienced nursery teams in settings that are set up each day to support each children’s learning and development needs. Please contact your local Grandir UK nursery and preschool to book your visit to see our teams at work and play!
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