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…
Simple water play ideas for toddlers, and tips for making water play easy and less messy.
Ice Painting – this one is messy but make beautiful paintings.
Washing Dishes – it doesn’t get easier than this!
With just Noah and I at home this year I have plans for some ‘back to basics’ toddler friendly sensory activities… so stay tuned.
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!
thanks for the ideas..love the ice painting one
Great compilation, thanks. My miss is 2.5, just the right age for lots of these :)
Pebble loves washing dishes too :) Great collection of ideas, thank you.
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.
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!
Ooo, I love the bubble and seed sensory play Kate. Nice list!
We still haven’t given slime a go… not sure why – but it does look like fun :-) Thanks for sharing!
Great list. Thanks for sharing :)
PS- I just had to share it. It’s featured on this weeks Tuesday Tots :)
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.