Exploring The World Through Touch, Sight and Sound

What babies see, hear, feel, taste and smell all contribute to their early experience of the world. These stimulus help to create pathways within their brains that help them begin to understand their environment. These pathways are vital for your little one’s ability to process the information coming from all directions, from which foods they like to being able to recognise their favourite persons voice.

The more sensory stimulation that a baby receives, the more neural pathways develop and strengthen in their brain. Although there is plenty of this stimulation happening all around them naturally, you can also help to grow your babies’ sensory experiences, providing them with objects, toys and activities that stimulate their senses and help them expand and strengthen those connections.

What Benefits Does Sensory Play Have For Young Children?

Positive sensory feedback – your baby enjoying a sensation, finding a song soothing or wanting to repeat an exciting noise, encourages experimentation. For example when playing with sand or water, young children who enjoy the sensations on their skin will be more likely to try more complex ways of play, digging their hands in deeper, creating narratives around their movements or adding other toys to the scene. Sensory play helps to grow their language and vocabulary by introducing new concepts. Take the opportunity to talk about how things feel or what they are remind you of. Once they are beginning to talk, encourage them to describe sensations such as wet, sticky, dry or rough. Ask questions about their feelings, does it feel rough or smooth?

Sensory play also supports the development of other key learning skills. Tactile activities help with their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Early on, contrasting colours, and interesting textures will capture their interest and encourage them to start reaching and grasping. As they get older and their play becomes more independent, sensory stimulus such as a musical reward for pushing buttons will help their fine motor skills by highlighting cause and effect.

Stimulating your baby or young child’s senses in as many positive ways as possible is something that most parents and caregivers will do naturally. From gentle singing at bedtime to soft textures on their skin, every tiny sensory stimulus is adding to your little ones world experience and growing new pathways in their developing brains.

Touch

Touch is one of the very first senses to develop, starting in areas of their cheeks and jaw during the first trimester of pregnancy. At birth, babies are able to recognise hot, cold, pain and pressure and their ability to interpret tactile stimulus grows significantly as they begin their lives. This very early ability to feel can be nurtured with simple sensory activities for very young babies. Try baby massage, swaddling in soft fabrics or gentle splashing with warm water at bath time to introduce them to a range of physical sensations – see below for more ideas!

Sound

We know that babies can hear and recognise the voices of their mother and close family members from a very early age. Once they start making intentional sounds their ability to process sound stimulus grows tenfold and they will start mimicking sounds and sentence structures way before they are able to articulate meaningful speech. As they start developing fine motor skills, toys that offer musical or sound rewards will be a hit!

Sight

Research shoes us that from newborn, very young babies are able to see and focus on objects between 8 and 15 inches away, typically the distance between them and their mothers face as they are being held. In a few months, this grows to around three feet. Babies can’t yet see the full colour spectrum, and will find highly contrasting or monochrome patterns much more appealing that pale coloured objects. Help them to develop their eyesight and focus by offering black and white patterned books and brightly coloured toys designed to stimulate sight.

Creating A Sensory Wonderland At Home

If you have the space, it’s a nice idea to create a sensory area at home for your little one to explore. You don’t need many supplies – it could be as simple as a tub of sand or a beanbag with some favourite books nearby. Some string lights, or a lamp with different brightness settings can help create a calm environment and the option to listen to music is a useful addition. Weighted blankets or toys can offer comfort, and a variety of pictures and books give of opportunity for engagement.

Sensory areas can also help children who suffer from over-stimulation. A calm, quiet area with comforting textures and familiar objects can be extremely useful to help children overcome high emotions, or deal with negative outbursts.

Sensory Play Ideas For Babies

• Songs and nursery rhymes with a physical element such as Round and Round The Garden, This Little Piggy or Incy Wincy Spider help them connect sounds with sensations, building those neural pathways as well as supporting development of their memory and motor skills.
• At bath time, gentle splashing or squirting with warm water, encouraging them to splash, drip and pour water will help them feel comfortable in water and with how it feels on their skin.
• Try different textures during play, a soft, fluffy blanket for tummy time or cuddling with soft toys suitable for their age helps them to explore touch.
• Try baby massage for a bonding activity that also introduces your baby to different sensations on their skin. Your local community centre will be able to point you in the direction of a local baby massage class,or look online for guided baby massage videos.
• Singing and gentle music at bedtime helps to signal that’s it’s time for sleep. Some bedtime toys offer light projections or music designed to lull them to sleep, contribution to their sensory learning at the same time.
• Rattles, drums, tambourines and rainmakers all create appealing noises for babies, and help grow confidence in using their hands and well as providing sensory stimulation.

Sensory Play Ideas For Pre-Schoolers

• Introduce new textures with sensory bins – we’ve seen people create wonderful sensory toys with shaving foam, slime, or even jelly. Bury dinosaurs in sand for a prehistoric dig or let them get messy with finger paints for exciting sensations and a creative outlet!
• Nature walks offer plenty of opportunity for exploring new textures, from rough pine cones to smooth leaves – create a scavenger hunt and collect items to create a collage or natural display at home. Or, try growing herbs or scented flowers together,.
• New foods offer exciting ways to explore their senses, smell, touch and taste all play a part when discovering new things to eat, watch their reactions and see which foods become instant favourites
• Explore hundreds of ideas for creating a sensory bin at home, online. We found these ideas for creating sensory-play opportunities with everything from taste-safe rainbow rice to kinetic sand and homemade ooblek.
• Musical instruments are a wonderful way to encourage sensory play at home. Noisy rewards from pushing buttons or sliding switches teach the basics of cause and effect, and older children will enjoy making their own music with instruments that have a range of notes.

Once you begin looking, you’ll find lots of opportunities to expands your little one’s experience of sensory play. At Early Learning Centre, we have a range of toys that are designed specifically to support your child’s sensory experiences and exploration of the world. Our Little Senses range contains lots of fun and interactive toys that are designed with sensory exploration in mind, with bright, contrasting colours and exciting play patterns. Explore everything that Early Learning Centre has to offer and help expand their world today.

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