Our little Chatterbox leprechauns celebrated St Patrick’s Day with a sensory exploration session involving green goo. With their parents adding plenty of descriptive language, the tots enjoyed covering themselves in the runny green liquid.
Messy play is a wonderful opportunity to engage with your child through sensory exploration and language, as they fully immerse themselves in the activity.
By providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses, they can explore their world through ‘sensory play’ and build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, something which is crucial to brain and language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem solving.
Sensory bins: fill a plastic tub, container or tray with different objects. It could be sand, water, beans, or dried rice or pasta. Let your child play and explore the new textures. Filling it with small toy figurines might even encourage imagination games for the toddlers.
Food play: Let your kiddies taste, squish and smear their food in order to learn about texture, taste and smell. Try not to wipe their faces until the end of their dinner.
Bubble play: blow bubbles for your little one, allowing them to feel the sensation of the bubbles landing on their skin. For toddlers, they can catch or pop the bubbles as they float in the air. Don’t forget to whisper “pop” when the bubble pops, as it emphasises the “p” sound.
Finger painting: for infants, baby rice cereal or yogurt with a drop of food colouring makes wonderful “paint”, allowing the children to paint their hands and feet. For toddlers, let them experiment by painting their own pictures.
Become a musician: while listening to some music, allow your kids to take part using home-made instruments such as pots (drums) or rice-filled containers (shakers).