Preschool sensory activities are a great way to entertain kids while exploring new and unique things! Sensory bins are only the beginning!
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The Importance of Sensory Activities in Preschool
Sensory activities help your kid’s brain develop and make complex connections.
Your kid’s brain is expanding and making new pathways through experiencing new and unique sounds, textures, smells, and noises.
Play is key for brain development!
New textures can take some getting used to for kids — just like new foods!
With the new textures being inviting and fun, kids are more likely to engage with it.
When kids become comfortable with new textures in play, it may transfer over into kids being okay with these textures in food.
A mom can hope this will end picky eating, right?!
Curiosity is piqued when new activities are presented.
What things feel and smell like are things that kids are interested in.
They wonder what will happen if they squeeze, shake, or break apart the items.
New sensory activities allow kids to explore their curiosity and learn about cause and effect.
Increased focus and attention on an activity are also a benefit of sensory play.
Kids enjoy sensory play and can lose themselves in the activities.
This will help build up stamina to complete other activities.
What Makes a Good Preschool Sensory Activity?
A good sensory activity needs to be inviting for the preschooler.
If your kid isn’t interested in it, he won’t do the activity.
This can be as simple as putting a favorite character or animal figure in the sensory bin.
New sensory experiences are important.
You are trying to have your kids experience something they rarely, if ever, have experienced to help their brains to make new connections and pathways.
This may be as simple as a new texture or a new smell.
Open-ended activities are a must when it comes to sensory activities.
This allows your kids to engage with the materials how they want.
Doing this not only helps not only to make the activity more enjoyable for them, but they are also more likely to play longer.
Allow your kids to get messy!
Not all sensory activities can be easily contained.
If possible, take the sensory activity outside.
Less clean up for you (yay!) and more opportunities to build connections in your kid’s brain.
Even playing outside in bare feet can be a new sensory experience!
Body movement and awareness are included in kids’ sensory needs.
The sensory activity should allow for kids to move around, jump, hop, skip, whatever!
Not only does this help to get out some energy, but it also helps your preschooler to learn how his body moves so he can gain better control over it.
Must-Try Preschool Sensory Activities
Preschool Sensory Activities to Try This Week
Each one of these preschool sensory activities are a great way to entertain kids while they explore new and unique things! With fun activities like sensory wall mosaic art, glitter galaxy slime, giant water beads and so many more, your kids will want to try all of them!
If you’re wondering how to create a sunken treasure discovery bottle, check out this pirate sensory bottle. Make one today for the kids.
This is a fun and simple construction zone sensory bin for toddlers and preschoolers using rice, beans and vehicles! If your toddler is a car fanatic then they will love this construction zone sensory bin made out of two common household ingredients, beans and rice!
Create a fun sensory animal washing station activity for toddlers and preschoolers that will entertain them for hours!
This no-mess sensory play activity for children doubles as a fantastic opportunity to learn math through art. Children learn to observe geometric shapes and angles as they create temporary mosaic art.
Make a sensory rainbow by pushing the straws into shaving cream. By using the shaving cream as a base, the straws are able to stick and kids get to enjoy a sensory activity by playing with the shaving cream when they are done.
Making your own glitter slime at home is a lot easier than you think, and it can create hours of fun for little hands and fingers.
This two ingredient playdough recipe is perfect for those times when you just can’t do a whole batch of playdough from scratch. As an added benefit, it smells amazing, and feels different than other playdough.
This monster sensory bin is so much fun for preschoolers! They can create their own monsters with rice, pompoms, and googly eyes.
This Fishing Alphabet Sensory Bin is a fun, hands-on way for your preschoolers to practice identifying capital and lowercase letters.
Rainbow in a Bag is a fun sensory painting activity for kids of all ages. This sensory painting activity is so satisfying that you will want to paint with it too! The best part of this sensory activity is that it’s mess free and safe for even the smallest artist!
Giant Water Beads - Ultimate Guide To This Amazing Sensory Activity
This Giant Water Bead Play activity is such a wonderful sensory activity. And the best part? Water beads are so simple to set up as well! Your child is going to love feeling these giant water beads and watching them roll around and play.
This particular homemade playdough is pretty easy to make and is tasty. It uses easy ingredients you probably already have at home. And it wows your kids to make playdough out of something they already love.
Create a garden sensory bin that kids will love. Perfect for Spring and so easy to put together.
It’s a Disney in Ice Escape activity that will allow your child to explore with different tools and help them break the Disney figurines out of the ice!
Kids are obsessed with space and the moon. Make their interest a fun sensory experience with homemade moon dough.