Time to deck the halls!
For those with kiddos, the Christmas decorations coming out are a mixture of joy, tradition…and anxiety of “will these survive my toddlers.” Boundaries are a learning curve for tots, but one thing that can help is giving an option that is allowed whenever another is not – a.k.a. – making a sensory bin of ornaments that are safe for them to play with to keep their attention from those that are not!
Sensory play is the bomb – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling are all ways kiddos learn to feel, think, and make comparisons of the things around them.
Sensory play boosts so many areas of their development all while allowing for hands-on, self-directed discovery that creates connections while they explore and investigate what you’ve put before them!
For my class I like to switch out the ornaments weekly so its a brand new surprise every week. This helps keep them engaged – this one basket kept these two busy for half an hour!
Dollar stores have plenty of inexpensive decorations of various shapes, sizes, textures etc to keep them interested.
These are actually wooden balls which was an awesome find for this activity – they’ve been dropped so many times and yet remain unbroken 😀
And speaking of balls, here’s a pic of my friend demonstrating how a sensory activity can boost language development!
“Ball!”
Yes friend! That is a ball! Good job linking a word concept to an object!
Sensory play is crucial for language development because until they experience a ball, the word “ball” doesn’t mean anything! And the more kinds of balls they experience, the more they realize what makes a ball a “ball” – the colors, size, pattern, texture can change, but its still a ball 🙂
Sensory play also builds their fine motor skills as they pick up, grasp, hold, pinch, balance, and rotate their wrists to look at every angle!
Group sensory play can also work on social-emotional development as they practice sharing objects, space, and time (aka taking turns).
And of course, sensory play uses their senses!
Here they are “hearing” this ornament 😀
And, even though these particular ornaments are unscented, here is this friend using her sense of smell.
This is one of her favorite games to make us laugh – she likes to sniff things dramatically…
…then laugh 😀
It’s my favorite 😀
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