Every day sensory activities for kids
Categories: Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers, Teens & tweens, Development, Playground bureau
When I was still teaching, I worked with an occupational therapist who was so talented, I wished I could bottle her up and take her home. She was constantly teaching me new things about my students and how to help them regulate their nervous systems.One of the most important things she taught me, however, is that children with special needs aren't the only ones who need a "sensory diet." Instead, she said, we all have inside of us an engine. When we need to be calmed or energized, we need to give that engine the proper fuel. Every body is different, so the key is finding what kind of activities are the best fuel for you or your child.
Mommy Poppins has a list of 99 sensory activities for every child, organized by type. If your child seems overstimulated, these activities can help bring them back down to Earth. If your child is tired and cranky, they can give them the energy they need to get through to bedtime.
The nice thing about these activities is that you can do them without any equipment or preparation of any kind. Got a restless kid at the grocery store? Let them push the cart. Kids driving you crazy at home? Put them to work sweeping or hauling baskets of laundry. Depending on your child's needs, you may find that activities like those on this list will help your child feel calmer and more grounded.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dr. Bob Titzer 5-07-2008 @ 7:02PM
As an expert in early learning, I am very much in favor of encouraging daily sensory activities for babies and toddlers. However, I do recommend extending this to include multi-sensory activities, which I also apply to teaching language. Multi-sensory learning employs as many of a child’s sensory systems as possible, such as looking, touching, listening, moving and tasting, while she is interacting with the world around her. It is a scientific fact that infants will learn more when this approach is used. As an example, if you were to take a flower and let a baby see, feel, smell and touch it, she would gain a much greater understanding of the flower, or any other object she would gain a much greater understanding of the flower than if she learned through only one sensory system. For more information on how to apply this multi-sensory approach to learning language, please visit my blog at www.teachyourbaby.com.
Dr. Robert C. Titzer
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