Sensory Play

Sensory Play involves activities that engage one or more senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It often includes exploring materials with different textures, sounds, and visuals. It may also involve creating art with vibrant colours and varied materials, listening to calming sounds, or tasting new Flavors.

This is the stage where a child shows maximum engagement and exploration. The child understands the functioning of the world and his brain is developed maximum through movement and exploration. Sensory exploration lays the foundation for sensory awareness, helping children become more attuned to their senses.

Sensory play is an important aspect of child development, as it helps to develop physical skills, balance, coordination, listening and looking skills, emotional regulation, social interaction, and thinking skills.

Sensory exploration is Engaging in sensory play, such as touching, feeling, and manipulating different materials. This helps children explore their senses and become more aware of their surroundings.  This helps in better alertness and arousal. This heightened sensory awareness can improve their ability to focus and pay attention. Sensory play often involves engaging multiple senses, such as sight, touch, smell, and sometimes sound. This multisensory experience helps childrenprocess and integrate information more effectively, enhancing their attention span and concentration.

Sensory play often involves new and interesting materials or activities, which can capture a child's attention and spark their curiosity. This novelty and engagement can help them sustain their focus for longer periods. This curiosity also helps change the mindset of children who fall into stereotypic play, the ones who want to experience play in a repetitive manner.

Certain sensory activities, such as playing with playdough or engaging in deep breathing exercises, can have a calming and regulating effect on children. This can help them better manage their emotions and attention, especially when feeling overwhelmed or distracted. Sensory play provides a safe space for them to express and process their feelings.

Sensory play helps children develop their sensory processing abilities, which are essential for attention and focus. As children become more proficient in processing sensory information, they can better filter out distractions and maintain their attention on the task at hand. Processing difficulties may hinder their life skills like not responding to names, being unable to process instructions, having difficulty with certain sounds, finding things, and enjoying slides and swings. Stimulation to senses in a guarded way helps them resolve the discomfort or sensitivities.

Sensory play can also support cognitive and language development, which are closely linked to attention. As children explore and engage with sensory materials, they build new connections and understandings, which can enhance their ability to focus and pay attention. Sensory experiences lay the foundation for maturity and growth in the brain which ultimately helps in the development of higher executive functions like judgment, decision-making, problem-solving solving and critical thinking

By incorporating sensory play into children's daily routines and activities, parents and educators can help foster the holistic development of life skills.