12 Fun Sensory Activities for 1-3 years old Toddlers

As a Montessori-certified teacher, I’m passionate about sharing fun and educational activities for babies and toddlers. Sensory play is crucial for their development, so I’ve compiled some of our favorite sensory activities to help you engage your little ones. Although it’s been a while and I don’t have photos to share, I’ve personally tried all these activities with my little boy. I can assure you that, wherever we go, people often comment on how advanced he is. I hope you find this blog post helpful as your guide!

Children Learn Through Sensory Play

Children learn about their surroundings and the world through sensory play from the moment they are born.

Sensory play can involve activities such as exploring different textures, playing with water or sand, or even engaging in imaginative play with various objects. These experiences not only provide entertainment and fun for children but also contribute to their cognitive, physical, and emotional development. By engaging in sensory play, children develop their problem-solving skills, creativity, and ability to focus and concentrate on tasks.

They learn to differentiate between textures, colors, and shapes through sensory play. This knowledge helps them make connections and understand the world around them better. Additionally, sensory activities promote curiosity and exploration, encouraging children to engage in independent learning and develop a sense of wonder about their environment.

In this blog article, we’ll cover all seven senses by recommending some of our favorite sensory games and activities to enhance your infant’s and toddler’s development. We’ll also go over the benefits of each exercise in terms of sensory growth and development.

How Many Senses Are There, Exactly?

There are commonly believed to be five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. However, some experts argue that there are actually seven senses, including body awareness (the sense of body position and movement) and balancing (the sense of balance and spatial orientation). These additional senses play a crucial role in a child’s overall sensory development.

Some of us may have been taken aback when we learned that children need to cultivate not just the five senses we were taught about in school, but all seven, for their own long-term health and happiness. For example:

Sense of Sight: The ability to perceive and interpret visual stimuli is essential for a child’s learning and understanding of the world around them. It allows them to recognize faces, read, and understand colors, shapes, letters, words, numbers, body language, and other environmental cues, helping them navigate their environment with ease.
Sense of Smell: Recognizing and identifying different foods, plants, or materials in the environment is crucial.
Sense of Hearing: The sense of sound enables children to communicate, listen to music, and develop language skills. It also helps them detect potential dangers and be aware of their surroundings by recognizing sounds in the environment, understanding their meanings, and learning how to respond.
Sense of Touch: Children learn to distinguish between items that are safe to touch and those that are not, as well as recognize various textures and objects by their shape and material.
Sense of Taste: Children rely on their sense of taste to explore different flavors, determine what is safe to eat, and identify different tastes and the foods they belong to.
Balancing: They learn to adjust their body position and make quick reflexes to maintain equilibrium and avoid accidents. Additionally, children develop their sense of balance by practicing activities such as walking on uneven surfaces, riding a bike, or participating in sports that require coordination and stability.
Body Awareness: This can be achieved through activities that challenge proprioception, such as gymnastics, where children learn to understand their body’s position and movements. Developing body awareness also helps children improve their coordination and spatial awareness, which are important for activities like dancing or playing team sports.

With these seven senses in mind, let us explore different sensory activities that parents can use to encourage learning through sensory exploration and play.

✨ Montessori Sensory Table

A sensory table allows children to engage in tactile exploration, enhancing their sensory development through touch. By filling bins with materials like rice, water beads, or textured fabrics, parents can encourage their children to feel different textures and develop fine motor skills. The sensory table provides a safe and controlled environment for messy play, allowing children to explore and experiment freely.

Sensory Development: Seeing, Touching, Tasting

✨ Finger Painting

Finger painting allows toddlers to explore different textures and colors as they use their fingers to create artwork. This sensory experience helps develop their sense of touch and enhances their fine motor skills. Additionally, as they engage in finger painting, toddlers can learn new words and expand their language skills by describing the colors and shapes they are creating.

Finger painting also strengthens their eyesight by picking out different color combinations and making use of their sense of touch to blend colors by hand. When painting, they rely on both sight and touch. Listening to parents for guidance and feedback helps refine their hearing, improving their precision, balance, and creative thinking.

Sensory Development: Touching, Seeing, Listening

✨ Writing with Salt Trays

Toddlers can enhance their visual-spatial abilities, language skills, and sense of touch by playing with a tray of salt and practicing drawing shapes and letters.

This activity helps them prepare for using a pencil and eraser. They can either use a “magic wand” or trace with their finger to create designs in the salt. A quick shake of the tray redistributes the salt, allowing them to start anew.

Sensory Development: Touching, Seeing, Language

✨ Smell & Guess

In concealed containers, we hide scented items for toddlers to sniff and guess without peeking inside. This activity encourages language development and sensory awareness as they describe the scents they encounter.

This practice enables toddlers to utilize their other senses, such as touch and hearing, to make guesses, enhancing their sense of smell and sensitivity. Engaging their senses with a variety of fragrances makes for a pleasant and interactive experience.

Parents can use scented oils like lavender, peppermint extract, and vanilla extract, or fresh ingredients such as cinnamon sticks, lemons, garlic, flower petals, and vinegar.

Sensory Development: Smelling, Touch, Hearing

✨ Pretend You’re on a Tightrope

One of the simplest games that can assist children in developing a sense of balance is “pretend tightrope.” A rope or string is placed on the ground, and toddlers walk in a straight line along it without stepping off.

This game not only helps toddlers develop their sense of balance but also enhances their sensory development. As they walk along the string, they can experience different textures under their feet, such as grass or pavement, stimulating their sense of touch. Encouraging them to focus on the sound of their footsteps further enhances their sensory development in terms of hearing.

Sensory Development: Balance, Body Awareness

✨ Sandbox Games

Sandbox games allow children to explore different textures and sensations through touch, enhancing their sensory development. Observing the shapes and structures they create promotes visual perception skills.

By exploring with a variety of objects and techniques, toddlers learn to engage with their world. Parents can stimulate their play by building sandcastles or hiding toys for them to locate.

Sensory Development: Touching

✨ Montessori Busy Board

A Montessori busy board is filled with various textures, shapes, and objects for children to explore through touch and sight. Manipulating the different elements on the board enhances fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Additionally, the busy board encourages problem-solving and cognitive development as children figure out how each component works.

Sensory Development: Seeing, Touching

✨ Simon Says

The game “Simon Says” involves following instructions given by the leader, such as “Simon says touch your nose” or “Simon says jump up and down.” This helps children improve their listening skills and understand spatial concepts. Additionally, “Simon Says” promotes body coordination and self-control, as children must only perform actions when preceded by the phrase “Simon says.”

Children learn best through play, and “Simon Says” helps improve their listening and body awareness skills. They’ll learn to pay close attention, follow instructions, and use their attention, focus, and short-term memory.

Sensory Development: Listening, Body Awareness

✨ Rice or Pasta Bin with Scoop

Playing with bins of rice or pasta provides toddlers with opportunities to explore different textures and develop fine motor skills. They can scoop, pour, and manipulate the rice or pasta, incorporating various colors and shapes to enhance visual perception and cognitive development.

Parents can provide different sizes and edible pasta or rice for sensory fun, helping toddlers develop motor skills and a sense of touch through shoveling, scooping, and dumping objects.

Sensory Development: Touching, Tasting

✨ Baking or Cooking

Baking or cooking promotes sensory development in children. Measuring ingredients, mixing them together, and feeling different textures stimulate their senses of touch, smell, and taste. Following a recipe and understanding the steps involved in baking or cooking enhance their cognitive skills and ability to follow instructions.

✨ Mystery Bags

Mystery bags are a fun and interactive way to promote sensory development in children. By placing various objects with different textures, shapes, and sizes into a bag, children use their sense of touch to guess what each object is without looking. This activity enhances their tactile perception and encourages critical thinking and problem-solving skills as they identify objects based on texture alone.

✨ Hot and Cold Sensory Bottles

Children learn about temperature through touch by filling one bottle with warm water and another with cold water. They compare the sensations of the bottles and learn to distinguish between hot and cold temperatures. This practice engages their tactile sensations and helps develop their ability to detect and describe various temperatures.

✨ Freeze Dance

Freeze dance mixes music and movement in a fun and participatory game. Children can freely dance to the music, but when it stops, they must remain in their current position. This practice promotes physical activity and coordination while improving their listening abilities by challenging them to pay attention to music signals. Freeze dancing encourages creativity by allowing toddlers to express themselves through their unique dance routines.

We hope you and your little ones enjoy these sensory activities as much as we do. Remember, playtime is not only fun but also a crucial part of your child’s development. Happy playing!

Sources:

How many senses do humans have? Science Focus
The Importance of Sensory Play. Pathways.org
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