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As a childcare provider, you know that children learn best by doing – and 'doing' often means engaging their senses. Understanding and intentionally supporting sensory development is fundamental to creating rich learning experiences that propel children's growth across all domains.
This guide will delve into why sensory exploration is vital in early childhood and equip you with practical strategies to foster optimal sensory processing in your classroom.
What is sensory processing?
Sensory processing is the ability to perceive, process, and organize information received through the senses and form an appropriate behavioral or motor response to it. In early childhood, sensory skills become more refined and facilitate multisensory learning.
As a child’s senses develop, they are able to comprehend and interpret sensory input from their own body and the environment, and respond in a consistent and meaningful manner. For effective sensory processing, the seven senses (listed below) must work together:
- Sight (visual sense)
- Hearing (auditory sense)
- Smell (olfactory sense)
- Touch (tactile sense)
- Taste (gustatory sense)
- Vestibular sense (movement and balance)
- Proprioceptive sense (body part positioning and movement)
Activities Across Developmental Domains
Use this guide to craft strategies for activities that foster child development across developmental domains.
Why is sensory processing important?
Sensory processing plays a crucial role in emotional self regulation, which is a skill children gain to help identify and manage their emotions in an appropriate way. With sensory processing skills, children are able to better regulate their emotions and calm themselves down with things like deep breathing exercises.
When sensory information isn't processed efficiently, it can impact a child's ability to learn, focus, and regulate their emotions, making intentional sensory experiences in the classroom even more critical. Here are some more reasons why sensory processing is so important for child development:
Develops visual sense (sight)
Through sensory processing, children detect, interpret, and differentiate visual information like colors, movement, and brightness. In addition, children develop the ability to distinguish between shapes, an essential learning skill for recognizing numbers and letters.
Develops auditory sense (hearing)
Children use sensory processing skills to perceive the pitch, volume, rhythm, and closeness of sounds. They can tell when a sound is loud or soft. A sharp sense of hearing also helps children to differentiate sounds between similar-sounding words, like kitchen and chicken.
Develops olfactory sense (smell)
As children’s sensory processing skills are strengthened, they begin to develop the ability to detect and interpret smells. They’re able to differentiate between pleasant smells and unpleasant smells. Because smell is interconnected with taste, when children smell food, it also activates their sense of taste.
Develops gustatory sense (taste)
Through sensory processing, children develop the ability to perceive the taste (sweet, sour, bitter, and salty) of substances. Sensory processing helps children differentiate different flavors to determine foods they enjoy and foods they don’t like.
Develops tactile sense (touch)
As children use sensory processing skills, they learn to perceive sensations on the skin, like temperature, pressure, pain, and vibration. They are also able to discover how different substances and textures feel.
Develops vestibular sense (balance and movement)
Children develop an awareness of movement, gravity, and balance through sensory processing, which helps them move their bodies without falling. As a result, they can engage in activities like running, sitting, or balancing on one foot.
Develops proprioceptive sense (body position)
With developed sensory processing skills, children can perceive the placement of their body parts in relation to each other, allowing them to do things like stretch, bend, and walk up a flight of stairs without looking down at their feet. They can also tell how much pressure to use when clapping their hands or closing a door.
Sensory development stages
The progression of sensory development occurs over time. Here’s how it typically develops in early childhood:
0 to 6 months
- Responds to voices and sounds
- Identifies the smell of mother’s breast milk
- Follows moving objects with eyes
- Reaches out for objects
- Can distinguish between hot and cold temperatures
- Coordinates sucking, swallowing, and breathing
- Can differentiate between basic colors
- Can distinguish between sweet, salty, sour, and bitter tastes
6 to 12 months
- Tastes a range of foods
- Hears the full range of sound frequencies
- Imitates gestures
- Begins to develop depth perception
- Has full color vision
- Sits without support
- Grabs objects with forefinger and thumb
- Distinguishes different textures with hands and mouth
1 to 2 years
- Walks
- Scribbles
- Has full sensitivity to taste
- Imitates sounds
- Chews food correctly
- Recognizes familiar objects
2 to 3 years
- Begins to develop food preferences
- Kicks a ball
- Eats with a spoon
- Uses more gestures than just waving and pointing, like blowing a kiss
- Turns book pages
- Jumps off the ground with both feet
3 to 4 years
- Socializes through play
- Can name most colors
- Can string items together, like large beads
- Can dress themselves with the exception of buttons, fasteners, and laces
- Feeds themselves without difficulty
4 to 5 years
- Can identify shapes
- Can identify some foods by smell
- Displays emotional self-regulation skills
- Can follow rules
- Hops on one foot
- Pays attention for 5-10 minutes
While these milestones are typical around these age ranges, children will develop sensory skills at their own unique pace and might reach certain milestones earlier or later than others.
How sensory play supports development
When children engage in sensory play, they learn through curiosity, exploration, creativity, and problem-solving. Here’s how sensory play supports development:
Promotes fine motor skills
Sensory play helps children develop fine motor skills such as holding, squeezing, and grasping. Teachers can promote fine-motor-skill development by encouraging children to do things like tie their shoes, grab a crayon and color, zip and unzip a jacket, hold a book, or play with building blocks. Simple activities like kneading dough in a sensory bin strengthens hand muscles for writing.
Builds language skills
Introducing language during playtime helps children learn without feeling overwhelmed. Giving them simple instructions such as “Pick up the play dough” or “Pour some rice” helps them to develop receptive language skills.
Introducing new descriptive words during sensory play, for example, “The dough is gooey'' or “That feels slimy,” helps them to build their vocabulary. You can also ask the children open-ended questions to encourage expressive language skills, for example, “What does this remind you of?” or “This feels cold to me. How does it feel to you?”
Develops cognitive skills
Through sensory play, children can learn how things work and how to solve problems. For example, children can discover how blocks rest on top of each other and how to make various creations with sand or slime. They can also gain an early understanding of the concepts of volume, mass, and cause and effect as they play with different materials such as water or dried rice in a sensory bin.
Improves social skills
When children engage in sensory play, they learn how to communicate and solve problems with their peers. For example, sharing tools and materials at a playdough station encourages negotiation and cooperation. They can also develop empathy by adapting to how others play and listening to their ideas.
Helps children keep calm
Sensory toys typically have a calming effect on children by regulating internal discomfort caused by restlessness or boredom. For example, weighted sensory toys provide deep pressure to muscles and joints, creating a calming effect and sensory bottles give children something to focus on when they feel overwhelmed or anxious. Sensory activities also keep children focused on a specific activity, helping to block out distractions.
Sensory integration activities for the classroom
Creating a stimulating sensory environment is key to supporting healthy development in children. Incorporating a variety of sensory integration activities throughout the day helps children process information from their surroundings, regulate their emotions, and develop crucial motor and cognitive skills. Here are various activities targeting all the sensory systems that you can implement in your classroom:
Tactile (touch) activities:
- Sensory bins: Fill bins with a variety of materials like rice, beans, water beads, sand, pasta, or pom-poms. Add scoops, cups, and small toys.
- Playdough/clay station: Offer homemade playdough (perhaps scented!) or clay with tools like rollers, cutters, and stamps.
- "Feely bags": Place various textured objects (e.g., a feather, a smooth stone, sandpaper, cotton ball) in opaque bags. Children reach in and describe what they feel without looking.
Visual (sight) activities:
- Light table exploration: Provide translucent blocks, colored tiles, leaves, or drawings for children to explore on a light table.
- Discovery bottles/jars: Create sealed bottles with water, glitter, beads, small toys, or oil and food coloring.
- Nature collages: Gather natural materials (leaves, twigs, flowers) and encourage children to arrange and glue them onto paper.
Auditory (hearing) activities:
- Sound matching games: Record common classroom sounds or animal sounds and have children identify or match them to pictures. Use shakers or musical instruments filled with different materials for matching.
- Music and movement: Incorporate various genres of music for free dance, follow-the-leader, or guided movement activities.
- "Listen closely" circle time: Have children close their eyes and listen for specific sounds inside or outside the classroom, then discuss what they heard.
Olfactory (smell) activities:
- Scented playdough/art supplies: Add extracts (vanilla, peppermint), spices (cinnamon, nutmeg), or fruit peels to playdough or paint.
- Smell jars/pads: Create small, labelled containers with cotton balls soaked in different scents (e.g., lemon, coffee, lavender, safe spices). Have children guess the scent.
Gustatory (taste) activities:
Important tip: Always ensure activities are supervised, address allergies, and use non-choking hazards.
- Safe snack exploration: Offer small tastings of different fruits or vegetables with varying tastes (sweet, sour, crunchy, smooth).
- "Crunchy vs. soft" snack time: Provide snacks with distinct textures like apple slices and mashed banana. Talk about how they feel in their mouths.
Proprioceptive (body awareness) activities:
- Animal walks: Lead children in moving like various animals (e.g., bear crawls, crab walks, frog jumps).
- Pushing/pulling games: Have children help move light furniture, stack heavy blocks, or push against a wall.
Vestibular (balance and movement) activities:
- Swinging (indoor/outdoor): Utilize swings if available. If not, gentle rocking in a large beanbag chair or on a therapy ball (with support).
- Spinning (supervised): Allow children to spin safely on a low-to-the-ground sit-and-spin toy, or guide them through gentle, slow spins in a seated position.
- Obstacle courses: Design courses that require crawling through tunnels, stepping over pillows, balancing on a low beam, climbing over soft blocks, or rolling.
By thoughtfully integrating these diverse sensory activities into your daily classroom routine, you can create a dynamic and responsive environment that supports every child's unique sensory processing needs and fosters their overall development.
The bottom line
Sensory development lays the foundation for a child’s learning as they make sense of the world around them by using their senses. Incorporating sensory activities in your lesson plan will help children cope with changes in their environment and adapt to real-life situations.
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