What is the importance of Preschool sensory play?

What in the world is a sensory tub!? A sensory tub is a tub filled with items that really engage any of your 5 senses - touch, sight, smell, sound and taste. It can be filled with items that fit in with the particular theme for the week, or just plain fun items! According PBS, children learn best and retain the most information when they engage their senses. By giving children the opportunity to investigate materials with no preconceived knowledge, you’re helping them develop and refine their cognitive, social and emotional, physical, creative and linguistic skillsets.

What’s in our Sensory Tub?

The sensory tub is kept on a table in our classroom that the students see first thing when they walk into the room in the mornings. VIDEO! See the children in action! Please watch our little video of the preschoolers learning about their world! The students have LOVED seeing what items are in the tub, and it is, 99.9% of the time, the first beeline they make when they walk into the room. The first few moments of introducing the tub (the first time they see what’s inside) is usually filled with silent wonder. As they touch (what Preschoolers love to do most!) whatever is in the tub, I can just see their gears grinding, silently asking themselves questions, or just thinking, “Wow, cool!” After a while, the students will began to answer questions, or even ask their own questions. Please feel free to use any of our ideas in your own home with your little ones! Do remember that an adult should always carefully monitor whenever the child is at the tub.  

Dinosaur Dig

The first tub we had was a dinosaur dig. I filled the tub with sand, and hid small dinosaurs. Rakes, shovels, and cups were also used. The children loved to scoop up the sand with shovels, and would shout with delight when a dinosaur was brought up, “I FOUND HIM, I FOUND HIM!” As I stated before, sensory tubs do not necessarily have to coincide with the theme for the week, but can just be a great sensory experience. I found a great recipe online for a frozen baking soda mixture. I put some baking soda into different sized Tupperware, and added water a little at a time, until the baking soda stuck to itself. I added different colours to each Tupperware, and of course, glitter! I froze them overnight, and brought them to school the next day. The children loved feeling how cold the mixture was. Eveveryone was shrieking, “Eee, it’s cold!” After a while of touching, the mixture started to come to room temperature, and was able to be squished and broken up.

Flower Power

One of our most popular tubs has been flowers in water. I filled the tub with water, and added Bougainvillea petals and leaves. I included shovels, spoons, and a sifter. Everyone loved sloshing the flowers around, picking up/choosing their favorite coloured petals, and even giving some love to the leaves!

Baby Birds!

Last week we had a bird nest sensory tub. I filled the tub with torn up white paper, leaves, photographs of Mom & baby birds in real nests, and balls (to represent bird eggs0. A favorite picture was of a Mommy bird making her own bird nest, carefully leaning upside down to wrap some leaves around her nest. We pretended like we were Mommy & Daddy birds, and rearranged the paper and leaves in our tub, to carefully support our bird eggs (the balls.)

Vegetable Patch

This week, we had a planting Carrots tub. It was filled with dried black beans, carrots, rakes, sifter, and a watering can. We enjoyed shaking the beans in cups and listening to the sound it made. We also loved planting the carrots in the cups. One of my students even brought over some laminated flowers to add to the tub (that we had used for a colour matching activity earlier in the day.) Everyone loved the addition of the bright-coloured flowers to the tub! Thanks for checking out our sensory tub blog! Check out our other preschool blogs! Feel free to pop in for the Moms 'n' Tots Club!