Sensory Bag

Benefits of Sensory Play

Sensory play is any kind of play that activates a child’s senses, and there are many significant benefits of engaging senses in play. These activities can encourage children to explore what they are playing or engaging with, and can help their brain create stronger connections to process and respond to sensory information. Sensory play is also extremely beneficial in a learning environment, for both children and adults. According to Educational Playcare, “Children and even adults learn best and retain the most information when they engage their senses.” This is one reason why it is so important for sensory play to be incorporated into the school system, and according to Educational Playcare, this activation of their senses can assist in “Providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development – it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways.” Michigan University also highlights the cognitive benefits of sensory play for children, saying: “It is also the foundation of all the skills children will use in school learning to read, write and solve math and science problems. Once a child has these experiences, they are able to draw upon the body memory and cognitive memory of their experiences when faced with new situations. Further, the process of observation is a skill in and of itself. Keen observation skills give a child an advantage in school and throughout life.” Overall, sensory play is crucial for child development in so many ways, and is important to incorporate into the educational experiences of children.

REFLECTION:

Making my sensory bag was a super exciting experience, and it was also very messy! It particularly made me appreciate the mess-free aspect of the completed sensory bag. My sensory bag was extremely fun to play with, and I ended up playing with it in all the rest of my classes for the day, and played with it while I was listening to a lecture. It made me think about the learning benefits of sensory play, even for teens, because it helped me focus by giving me something to fiddle with. My sensory bag was related to a book about different shapes, and I cut out foam shapes and put them in my sensory bag, along with some glitter to make it visually stimulating. I made my sensory bag particularly small, which I really liked because it’s very transportable and I can hold the whole bag in both of my hands, however if I were to make another sensory bag in the future, I might consider making a bigger bag. For me, it was nice that it was small, but I think for younger children, it might be more engaging if it were bigger so that there were more elements to look at, and more to squish.