sensory play
Touch-based learning activities
Sensory play is activity designed to stimulate a child's senses—touch, sight, sound, smell, taste.
It typically involves materials with interesting textures or properties: sand, water, playdough, slime, rice bins.
The term appears in early childhood education and parenting contexts: We set up a sensory play station with kinetic sand.
In adult contexts, sensory play refers to erotic activities involving blindfolds, ice, feathers, or other sensation-focused stimulation.
- playdoughMalleable children's craft material
- finger paintingArt using digits directly
- touchPerceiving through physical contact
- textureSurface tactile quality
- waterClear essential liquid
water table · slime · tactile · sand · oobleck · occupational therapy · sight · kinetic sand · preschool · proprioception · gross motor skills · vibration · smell · sound · feathers · fine motor skills · emotional regulation · rice
- childhoodchildhood, baby, child, kid, toys
- parentinggentle parenting, child, mom, children, kids
- playgames, played, toys, playfulness, players
- toddlerstoddler, three-year-old, toddlerhood, terrible twos, first steps
- preschoolpreschool, nursery school, pre-K, pre-k, kindergarten
- sensessight, smell, taste, hearing, touch
sensory playsensory deprivation
Blocking all external stimuli
sensory isolation · understimulation · isolation tank · sterile environment
sensory playrote learning
Memorization through repetition
verbal instruction · sitting still · desk work · bookwork · abstract thinking