Creative Play: DIY Sensory Ideas for Children

Human lives center around using your five senses: auditory, sight, touch, smell, and taste. Fortunately, you get the chance to witness your child develop these senses as they grow and interact with toys, foods, and the adventurous world around them.

Children then move on to experience emotional, physical, and creative growth through sensory exploration that fosters linguistic and cognitive development. To further stimulate their creative needs, go ahead and explore some DIY sensory ideas for children to get started.

Rainbow Soap Foam

Even as an adult, soap foam is exciting! You’ll need ample amounts of water, dish soap, food coloring, and a large plastic container to keep it all. Start by adding the water and dish soap to the container, then add the food coloring to create any whimsical color combination of your choice.

Using a mixing tool, mix all the components on the highest setting until you have stiff foam peaks. If your children have sensitive skin, you can substitute any bubble bath solution they use for dish soap.

Sound Walk Adventure

The world around you contains so many different sounds that can teach your children the concept of noise. This idea doubles as a sensory activity and fitness opportunity since it allows young ones to walk and get their blood flowing.

You can create a worksheet with all the possible sounds to hear on the adventure and have kids mark them down as they listen to them. This will also help introduce them to the world around them.

“What’s in the Bag?”

A tactile guessing game, “What’s in the Bag?” involves children guessing the item in the paper bag without looking. All you’ll need to initiate the gameplay is the place each object in its corresponding brown paper bag and shuffle them around to ensure that contestants aren’t aware of the contents.

You can start the game off easy by allowing your children to feel familiar objects like toys and fruit. You can amp up the stakes by moving on to more difficult guessing items like paperclips, cotton balls, and other small things.

Edible Ice and Water Play

This activity can double as a fun refreshment as it utilizes water and drink mix powder. Mix the water and powder to create your solution, then freeze into cubes overnight. The result is colorful, delicious ice cubes that melt into a sweet beverage.

Sensory Box

Sensory boxes are unique containers of wonder that can appeal to all five senses! You can fill plastic bins with sand or Styrofoam puffs and place all kinds of tactile components. You can incorporate leftover ribbon material to introduce your young ones to different fabrics and textures.

Miniature activities within the sensory box-like snap cubes or fidgets are great distractions for many children who need a quick sensory break throughout the day.

Now that you have a significant amount of fun and exciting DIY sensory ideas for creative play, you can help your budding and curious young ones discover their senses and explore what the world has to offer.