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Activities for the Development of Sensory Perception


It is extremely important to encourage sensory development in childhood and at a pre-school age through a playful approach. This way children perceive new information and explore the world through positive and entertaining experiences. Activities focused on sensory functioning increase interest in gaining new knowledge, and foster curiosity in children. The activities given are included as appropriate for every sense – sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

For the development of visual and sensory perception it is also possible to make use of the activities suggested in the chapter concerning communication skills.

Sight

Throwing and catching a ball – develops hand-eye coordination and the ability to focus visual attention on a moving target (3–6 years).

  • Sorting objects according to various criteria – these games help children acquire the skills necessary for the visual sorting of objects. For instance you can use toy figures of various colors and sizes (3–5 years).
  • Kim’s game – we place 5 objects on the table. After a child has looked at them for 15 to 20 seconds, ask them to look away for a moment and switch one of the objects with a different one. The child then looks back at the objects and tries to say which one is missing. This game practices visual memory (4–6 years).
  • Connect the dots – we draw a pattern into a network of dots by joining them together and the child must imitate this activity on their own piece of paper. This activity develops hand-eye coordination and spatial orientation (4–6 years).
  • Describing a picture from memory – we show the child a picture and they have to memorize and then describe it. A more difficult variation is to tell a story without repeatedly looking at the picture (this trains visual memory; 5–6 years).
  • Searching for specific items in the classroom or outside – the game “I spy with my little eye, something…”; can also be played with pictures or photos (4–6 years).
  • Plastic bag and primary colors experiment – you will need red, blue and yellow paints (primary colors). Add some of each of two paints to opposite inner sides of a closeable plastic bag. You can seal the bag with tape if necessary. Place the bags on a flat surface. The children can now touch the paints and mix them with their fingers inside the bag. The interesting part is when the colors begin to mix. The children can try and name the new colors. Talk with the children about the process of creating new colors by mixing two primary colors and let them name different items which have one of those colors.

• Hearing


  • Playing different musical instruments (3–6 years).
  •  Learning to sing songs – e.g. about the names of the fingers or what sounds animals make (3–6 years).
  • Recognizing objects by sound – (3–6 years).
  • Recognizing other children by sound – (3–6 years).
  • Repeating rhythmical sets by pattern (clapping, drumming, claves; 4–6 years

• Smell

  • Identifying different substances by smell – this can be done with different cooking ingredients or spices (4–6 years).
  • Collecting natural materials – non-poisonous herbs and flowers – drying aromatic herbs and creating fragrant sachets from dry flowers and aromatic oils (4–6 years).
  • Games with scented play dough (3–6 years).
  • Cooking (small servings prepared under adult supervision) – for example, sandwiches with different products that stimulate a child’s sense of smell – cheese, butter, tomatoes, peppers and more. (4–6 years).
Taste
    • Games with different flavors and tastes can be incorporated so children can be stimulated to differentiate taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter. For example, making lemonade, trying the taste of a piece of bread with mustard, butter and salt, chocolate biscuits or more. Games involving tasting are very good to examine and develop how children perceive different flavors but also for stimulating self-dependence and autonomy in eating habits and food preparation.
    • With food, children can compare different foods by flavour. We can further expand this activity for them and let them guess different foods blindfolded (4–6 years).
      Touch
      • Games with clay, play dough, making home-made dough – in these games, children can mould various figurines and thereby stimulate themselves with different sorts of textures (3–6 years).
      • Finger painting (4–6 years).
      • Playing with puppets and finger puppets (4–6 years).
      • Shaping forms and figures from Kinetic Sand (3–5 years).
      • Finger painting in a mix of rice and lentils (3–5 years).
      • Searching for objects in a box filled with sand or grain (4–6 years).
      • Walking on various materials – soft, hard, uneven or made of natural products (leaves for example) – for each different texture, the experience is to be named and a small discussion with the child is done in order to direct the awareness of the child to their experience (4–6 years).
      • Book of tactile sensations – we create a book containing materials with various textures. The children examine them, touch and name them (3–5 years).
      • What it was? – A soft toy, a solid ball and a silk scarf. At the beginning the children touch them and listen to an explanation of the features of the objects. After that they close their eyes and “touch” the object with their hands, feet, face and back. The children must guess the object. (3–5 years).
      • What’s inside? – We take balloons and fill them two by two with rice, flour, beans and water. Children search for the identical pairs (3–5 years).
      • Cold-warm – We give the child an ice cube and introduce the word “cold”. After that we put their hand in a cup of warm water and introduce the word “warm” (3–4 years).
      • Guess me! – We show different fruits – a banana, an apple, a pear, a cherry. After that we put them in a cloth bag. The children must guess the fruit, using only their hands (3–4 years).
      • Differentiating figures and objects by their size. We give children a small ball and a big ball. The small ball can be caught in the palm of the hand and the big one with both hands. Small balls are put in small baskets, big balls in big baskets (3–4 years).
      • Choose objects by sensory similarities. We show different objects and toys and ask children to group them by various criteria; e.g. by colour, size, shape, material, etc. (3–6 years).
      • Sun – the children are in a circle. “Good morning, eyes!” – they rub their eyes. “Good morning, ears!” – they rub their ears, “Good morning, cheeks!” – they stroke their cheeks, “Good morning, hands!” – they rub their hands, “Good morning, feet!” – they stamp their feet, “Good morning, Sun, we woke up smiling! Stretch out your hands and say hello to the sun!” (4–6 years).
      • Ice cubes and shaving cream – an activity that makes children explore their senses. You need an ice tray, water, food coloring and shaving cream. You fill a small jug with water and then add the food coloring. The colored water is then poured into the tray and put in the freezer. When the ice cubes are prepared, you mix them with the shaving cream. Children can explore different textures, use words such as: cold, solid, wet, slippery. They can also name everything they touch, sense the smell of the shaving cream. When the cubes start melting, the cream changes its colour and this is a very interesting process for the children to explore. (4–6 years)