Texture

I have been doing a lot of research about sensory play and have found a lot of fun activities to try with my three-year-old...along with a lot of benefits gained by using sensory play with children.  Sensory play is any activity where a child uses his senses (taste, touch, see, hear, smell) to learn and explore.  Children are wired to receive input through their senses from day one...which is why they usually dive in hands (or mouth) first when given a new activity or toy.  The senses are the most basic and familiar way to explore, process, and understand something new... not to mention that it is so much fun!  Plus, when children are asked to communicate what they are experiencing (this feels squishy, this feels cold, this smells spicy, this smells warm) they develop stronger language skills and reinforce the cognitive concept they are learning.  They also increase their ability to learn from their senses, making them more attuned to the environment around them!  A common sensory play activity is a sand/water table.  You rarely find a preschool or kindergarten room without one because Early Childhood Development specialists know how important sensory play is to young children.  So, as I mentioned above, I've been searching for a variety of activities to do with my three-year old and I found a lot of fun things to do with texture and the sense of touch.  Exploring different textures is a great way for children to learn so I created a make-shift texture table for my son using a large cookie sheet and a variety of dry staples from my cupboards.  I put rice, elbow macaroni, sunflower seeds, dry beans, and Golden Grahams in different cups (I used a set of stacking cups from IKEA, but measuring cups of different sizes would work too) and let Zach play!  

Zach loved dumping the different things back and forth from each cup and spreading them around on the cookie sheet.  I also gave him a few measuring spoons so he could scoop and stir too.  Zach also loved listening to the different sound each made as he poured them back and forth.  He played quietly for over 30 minutes, a record for Zach.

   

Besides learning about different textures, this activity introduces the concept of volume.  As Zach would pour a big container full of rice into a smaller one he realized it didn't fit, and vice versa a smaller cup could not fill a bigger one.  It's also easy to stimulate conversation with this activity, which helps promote language.  Some questions you could ask are "How does the macaroni feel different from the rice?" or simply "What does this feel like?"  If you want to focus on sound you could ask questions like "Which one sounds loudest when you dump it on the pan?"  If you wanted to reinforce the volume concept you could ask "Which cup empties fastest when poured at the same time?" or "How many spoons does it take to fill a big cup vs. a small one?"  Sensory play is really about them exploring on their own, so don't direct too much, but asking a few guided questions to get them on their way is a great way to model how to question and explore.   Better yet, play along side and ask yourself the questions out loud and then explore the answer and announce your discovery out loud.  Children will follow your lead and learn those inquiry skills by copying what you do.  Other things you can use in your texture table are dry split peas, popcorn kernels,  spiral macaroni, bow ties, or whatever dry ingredients you've got hanging around.  If you have a small child who likes to eat anything you put in front of them (Zach was almost 2 1/2 before he quit stuffing everything in his mouth) you could use edibles such as Cheerios, Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, Corn Flakes, Gerber Stars, etc.  What 2-year-old wouldn't love playing in all that cereal.  I have one caution...you may want to put a towel under the pan to help catch the items that don't make it back in the pan while all the pouring is going on...I swept up dry rice for about three days after we played.  But that was a small price to play for how much fun my three-year-old had playing in all that texture!!