15 Sensory Play Activities For Children - Early Years Careers (2024)

Are you looking for some great sensory play activities that involve children using their senses?

From the minute, a baby is born they begin using all their senses to explore their local surroundings. It is important that adults understand the importance of sensory play as this can have a huge impact on children’s brain development. The more stimulating opportunities children are provided with the easier it is for children to learn about the world around them.

Sensory play is for all children not just for those children who have difficulty with sensory integration. All children should be provided with opportunities to use their senses. Many people automatically think that sensory play is sand, water, playdough, clay, gloop etc when in fact adults need to think about other activities that involve children using their other senses such as taste and smell. Giving children the opportunity to explore different types of texture, tastes and other objects can really help children develop new ways of communicating about the world around them. Children will begin to realise that a certain object has other properties for example when examining flowers brought in from the garden, children will be able to describe the colour, the smell and possibly the texture.

Sensory play opens up so many learning opportunities and can help develop many areas of children’s development for example children will use their gross motors skills to coordinate their large muscles and use their fine motors skills to coordinate their small muscles groups.

If you are looking for some inspiration for some new sensory play activities for children, then take a look at the list below

• Hair gel in a zip lock bag. Add some hair gel and some food colouring to a zip lock bag and place this on the table for the children to explore with their hands.
• Making scented playdough. Why not make playdough but add some essence drops to it such peppermint or strawberry essence or spices such as cinnamon
• Soil play. Fill a tray with some soil and add some mini beasts to the soil. This is a simple activity that covers many areas of development as well as using the senses
• Visit a fish market. Take the children on a walk to the local fish market or supermarket that has a fish counter. This is a great activity to encourage children to use their smell sense.
• Sensory bottle – Add oil, water, food colouring and sequins to a bottle, this will makes a great sensory bottle

• I spy bottle. Fill a plastic bottle with rice and other objects that will fit inside the bottle. The object of this activities is for children to look what is inside the bottle and describe what they can see.
• Nature walk outside. Talk the children outside for a nature walk, you could hide some soft toys and bugs to extend this activity further.
• Edible finger paint- Using instant mash, water, and food colouring mix this all together to create a paint consistency. This is also a great activity to develop children’s mark making skills

• Painting on bubble wrap- Fix some bubble wrap either to the floor or on a table and let the children paint the bubble wrap.
• Making shampoo gloop – Mix shampoo and cornflour together to create this gloop consistency

• Playing musical instruments– Put some music on and let children play musical instruments to the sound of the music.
• Fruit tasting session- Introduce the children to fruits such as grapefruits, lemons, lime, melon and talk about the different tastes.
• Water play- Add different water play toys such as ducks, frogs, penguin etc to a tray of water.
• Lentil play- Fill a tray will lentils and add various tools for emptying and filling.
• Wet sand – Add some water to the sand to make a different consistently compared to dry sand.

• Shaving foam and ice cubes – This sensory activity combines two resources shaving foam and ice cubes, a simple but effective sensory activity

Remember that sensory play doesn’t just have to be activities that involve children using their hands to explore, make sure you are providing activities that involve children using all their other senses.