9 Simple Sensory Play Ideas

simple sensory play ideas
The sense of touch is a wonderful thing to base an activity around. Toddlers, preschoolers and even bigger kids love sensory play and it’s well worth the effort for the great learning opportunities and loads of fun you can have.

Yep, sometimes it can be a bit messy, but if you set up well then cleaning up isn’t too bad. And you don’t have to have lots of fancy or expensive equipment or ingredients either.

Here are nine of our favourite, simple, sensory play ideas…

Sand Tray Play

A Tub of Bubbles

A tub full of Seeds.

Frozen Treasures – Ice Play.

Simple water play ideas for toddlers, and tips for making water play easy and less messy.

Easy Slime Recipe.

Ice Painting – this one is messy but make beautiful paintings.

Washing Dishes – it doesn’t get easier than this!

Finger Painting.

With just Noah and I at home this year I have plans for some ‘back to basics’ toddler friendly sensory activities… so stay tuned.

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12 Comments

  1. Love all these ideas as we love our sensory play here! My absolute favourite is slime though and it’s so easy to do. My last batch was recycled for 6 months…and just quietly Miss Teen loves playing with it as much as her twin sisters do!

  2. We love frozen treasure in ice blocks, we play with them in the bath, in the swimming pool and breaking them apart with rubber hammers. I always have a stock of them in our freezer.

  3. Oh thanks KAte – it’ll be just Milla and I home this year, so we will definitely be trying out some of these!
    Milla already LOVES washing dishes, and anything to do with water will keep her entertained for hours- so the ice painting will be perfect!

  4. I think my son has sensory perception disorder and he’s been trying to touch the ice on the way home – never thought of it as a play activity. Thanks for sharing.