15 Fun Sensory Activities for Preschoolers - Numerical Dyslexia (2023)

Last updated October 8, 2022 by the editorial team

Preschoolers are a curious bunch. They have questions about everything going on around them. Just reading books aloud doesn't satisfy her. In fact, books may not complement every child's learning pace. The more engaging the lesson plans or projects, the more children are likely to achieve better levels of activity.

For this quality of better engagement quotient, innovative teaching methods include sensory activities. As the name suggests, sensory activities for preschoolers are playful interventions that allow students to use the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, kinesthetic, and vestibular senses. To get a better idea of ​​these activities, let’s explore in this post:

1. The role of sensory activities in teaching preschoolers.
2. Examples of sensory activities for preschoolers
3. How to use sensory activities for learning purposes
4. Results of using sensory activities
5. challenges

Here we start!

The role of sensory activities in teaching preschoolers.

Teaching preschoolers requires a lot of subtlety. Preschoolers are not well-versed in speaking, reading, or other basic skills. Therefore, it is not advisable to expect them to learn from books. You need something extra to encourage youinvestigative and collaborativepedagogical approach. This complementary solution is available at Sensory Activities. The main tasks of sensory activities are:

• Using a multisensory approach to teach fundamental skills:The skill development of preschoolers can be complemented with sensory activities that employ additional and alternative facilitators. For example, sensory activities and their locus of action change and spread the learning task to all receiving interfaces through the improvementbrain plasticity.
  
• Befriending children with functional aspect of conceptual learning:Write "cold" and ask to repeat ten times; The odds of learning this word are between two and eight out of ten for students at different learning speeds. But if you ask them to touch ice, they will certainly think about what cold means and what it feels like. Deeper anchoring of ideas is an important role that sensory activities can play.
  
• teach teamwork and social skills: Many sensory activities are more like group projects. By assigning them specific roles in these activities, children understand whatsocial skillsof accountability, responsibility, collaboration and teamwork. In addition, children develop emotional intelligence; Some activities help deal with anxiety issues because of their calming abilities.
  
• Teaching critical and logical thinking:At preschool age, the mind needs a little more exercise to understand the difference between opposing ideas like tall and short, fat and thin, and so on. Also, settings are sometimes simulated to match real settings, which is helpful.build knowledgeand logic.

All of these functions are critical to preschoolers' 360-degree development. Furthermore, learning difficulties impede the growth curve; sensory activities provide the opportunity for academic, socio-emotional, andlogical-mathematical intelligencecircumventing these challenges.

Here are some proven sensory activities explained that can help preschoolers reach learning goals with appropriate competence.

Sensory activities to inspire preschoolers to learn basic skills

The preschool environment is made up of sensory materials to stimulate curiosity and encourage participation. Small, readily available associative things are used to perform sensory activities. Thus we arrive at a playful method in action that is widely used in the following activities involving multisensory learning:

1. Write in the sand:Take an open flat box and fill it with sand. Guide the children to draw alphabets, numbers or shapes of their choice. Children use their sense of touch to develop writing skills through this fun activity.
2. Paint with Frozen Cubes:Fill different colors in ice cube tray or popsicle machine. You can take out the frozen paints and ask the children to draw lines or figures with these cubes. It helps in learning to write, despite the limited capacity of prehension.
3. play clay activities: Dough activities include kneading, pressing, etc. Preschoolers can improve their grip by performing these actions while making dough figures. Letter recognition is a bonus as kids mold tubes of dough and create letters!
4. Sort items on the magnetic tray: Mix up large and small objects of different shapes and ask the children to arrange them on a magnetic tray. This sensory activity develops fine motor skills and teaches logical thinking through the use of tactile and visual senses.
5. Learn alphabets with tactile letter cards: You can create a letter-shaped pattern with stencils and texture it with eraser and glitter. Children can touch these letter cards to understand the shape of the letters.
6. Jumping on a trampoline: Scream out the alphabet with each jump and watch the child practicing alphabets with no problems! Smiles and laughter add to the fun even more.
7. Play hopscotch with numbers or letters: Write letters or numbers in the sky pattern cells and place some items in those cells. Have the children find objects, walk back and forth to select them, and read the letter or number aloud when they reach the cell.
8. Play treasure hunt to find alphabets hidden in space: Write letters on posters, balls, etc. and hide them around the room. Children find items as they look for them in the group and arrange them in order on a table.
9. Rice box activity to learn quantities: Make a bowl of rice and give the children measuring cups of different sizes. You can first show what the different amounts look like and then ask the children to pick out those amounts of rice.
10. Alphabet Soup Container Activity: Fill a shallow container with colored water or water mixed with gel to make it look like soup. Place some letter-shaped floating balloons inside and ask the children to lift them out of the soup bowl. Helps achieve fluent letter recognition through tactile and visual senses.
11. baby bath: Give a baby toy and ask the children to bathe in a small sink. Kids can play and learn organs and also improve their grip.
12. make food containers: Put a lot of food such as pasta, donuts, candy, etc. in a trash can. Instruct the children to remove purchases from the trash can according to the instructions provided.
13. playing with sound tubes: Select some whistles and fill them with different materials like wood chips, water, ribbons, etc. These fillers cause the sound tubes to vary in weight. Show children the different sounds they make when touched and teach them the concepts of heavy and light.
14. Imaginary Gardening: Give the children a large tray of soil and garden toys such as plows, shovels, fake plants, etc. Children can plant them on the tray and develop the idea of ​​sequence of actions, become smart and work in a team.
15. Making music with different objects: Light and heavy objects make different sounds. Touch the items like cup, bathtub, mug, saucer, etc. and ask them to pronounce their names according to the sounds generated. It takes a little practice, but the results will be fantastic.

How to use sensory activities for learning purposes?

Sensory activities can be done both in the classroom and at home. These activities can last from minutes to hours. Depending on space and time, children can be led into these activities in the following ways:

• Group activity in the classroom:Make learning focussed on play by incorporating a multi-sensory approach to children's play activities.
• Homework project:You can involve the parents and ask them to guide the children in these activities at home.
• Picnic activities:Use different types of outdoor environments to give an idea of ​​the practical application of some sensory activities
• Involve the kids while driving the car:Some activities require little space and few things. Keep the child busy with these activities when commuting time is long.

Results of using sensory activities

The playful approach to teaching skills to preschoolers has received wide approval. Academic learning doesn't have to be difficult for young children; This is guaranteed by action-oriented teaching. AStudy 2011outlined the following outcomes commonly achieved through activities based on sensory learning:

• Easily develop basic language and math skills:Appropriate counting, letter recognition, letter and sound recognition, etc. skills are developed.
• Development of fine and gross motor skills:To improvemotor skillsfine and coarse in nature have become evident in children engaged in sensory activities
• Development of social skills:Children learn to wait, cooperate and develop a sense of camaraderie due to the participatory nature of these activities.
• Increased emotional intelligence:Do children identify emotions such as anger, happiness, contentment, achievement, confidence, and others
• cognitive development:Children understand the idea of ​​space, time and speed and build knowledge about how things look or work around them.

Since these activities fulfill an important task, i. H. Stimulating children's interest and curiosity in learning will help achieve the above results quickly and sustainably.

challenges

Managing children and activities poses a dual challenge for teachers and parents to maintain order and discipline in the classroom. Furthermore, some barriers to learning can arise when children are drawn to the playful appeal of sensory materials. Constant supervision is another requirement as kids are quite unpredictable and don't forget to learn quick ways to clean up the mess activities can create!

Diploma

The importance of sensory play has been recognized in the inclusive educational model. It is expected that activities involving this ludic method reduce early school leaving. This also empowers teachers and parents to better approach the intervention. However, designing learning-oriented activities requires teamwork and significant involvement from all departments.