Last week we tried out some new Sensory Tables in Nursery.
Sensory play:
- Encourages children to manipulate and mould materials, building up their fine motor skills and coordination.Sensory play uses all 5 senses, but the sense of touch is often the most frequent. Toddlers and children process information through their senses. They learn through exploring these.
- Is unstructured, open-ended, not product-oriented; it is the purest sense of exploratory learning
- Offers kids the opportunity for self-expression because there is no right answer and children feel safe to change or experiment with what they are doing.
- Allows children to experiment with language and descriptive words.
- Develop social skills: practising negotiation skills, turn taking and sharing. Provides opportunities for working out problems and experimenting with solutions.
- Encourages Imagination and creative play.
Some of the Sensory tables we had included: water beads, Shaving foam tray, Scented Play Dough, Water Balloons in water, Mess Free Painting, Disco with musical instruments, coloured rice and textured numbers. Please note: Adults were present at the tables which contained water and water beads.
Children had so much fun with the sensory tables. Check out the short video below showing the children in action.