13 Sensory Play Ideas Preschoolers Will Love

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Cloud Dough Bake Shop

Cloud dough is a silky, moldable dough that crumbles into a fine, soft powder when you run your hands through it.

It's super-simple to make, using just two basic household ingredients. It feels heavenly, and it smells fantastic, so playing with it is a truly wonderful sensory experience for kids. It also keeps indefinitely when stored properly.

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Mini Zen Garden for Kids

The true purpose of a zen garden is to serve as a gazing point while meditating. The purpose of our tiny zen garden is to provide children with a small world that encourages the exploration of a variety of natural materials through relaxing, quiet play.

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Glittery Blue Moon Dough

We're colouring our dough today to add to the sensory experience. Not only does it smell and feel wonderful, our blue moon dough looks fabulous too!

This dough will keep indefinitely, and the recipe can be easily doubled for a classroom or party activity.

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Make Your Own Indoor Beach

Why not bring the beach indoors while waiting for the weather to cooperate? Creating your own indoor beach is not only sure to brighten long winter days, but it's really fun and easy to do. The best part is that you probably have everything you need to create your own indoor beach on hand already!

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Ice-Themed Rice Sensory Bin

Kids can have hours of fun putting together, and playing with, an activity bin. But don't expect it to remain picture-perfect with little hands in there. That's okay. Permitting children to build and explore the bin, with confidence, is how they'll learn best, and enjoy their sensory experience to the fullest!

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Sparkly Sudsy Winter Sensory Bin with Snowflake Letters

To make the foam, we mixed dish soap with some vanilla brown sugar body wash, a splash of water, and a copious amount of silver glitter using an electric hand mixer. The scented body wash is optional, but the faint smell of vanilla was an added sensory bonus! Glitter usually gets everywhere, but it was a nice way to reflect the way freshly fallen snow sparkles.

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Puffed Rice Holiday Sensory Bin

For these small ones, we've put together a jolly sensory play bin that has kept them busy for 30 to 60 minutes at a time for 3 days now. Having a toddler busy and engaged in an activity for that amount of time is like winning the lottery. And even better than that? To put this bin together cost about the same as a lottery ticket...less than $10.

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Scented Valentine's Playdough and Mirrors

Playdough is always a hit and we love to experiment with new colours and scents. It's also fun to switch up the type of loose parts offered. This Valentine's themed playdough invitation for them includes some mirrors to make it even more interesting.

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Rainbow Bin with Green Pasta

This play experience offers a plethora of opportunities to practice so many important skills. The children practice colour recognition, eye-hand coordination, fine-motor skills, cause and effect, shape/texture sorting and recognition, sharing and turn taking, filling and dumping (a toddler favourite), and creative innovation. Oh, and it's really pretty and a whole lot of fun!

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Spring-Themed Water Play at the Sink

Water play is almost always a hit with young children. Doing it at the sink (in the bathroom OR kitchen) is a great way to keep little ones happily occupied while you make supper, take a phone call, or tidy up (making sure to stay close by your little one if he or she is still a toddler, or course).

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Beautiful Autumn Sensory Box

This discovery box is chock full of fall goodies. There are so many textures, smells, and colours, and almost everything in the box was free. That's the best news of all! Now children can play and discover Autumn even when it's cold and rainy outside. Be ready for a continuous stream of questions, and exclamations!

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Popcorn Kernel Fall Sensory Bin

This fall sensory bin for toddlers and preschoolers captures those warm autumn colors without bringing on cooler temperatures. Plus, this sensory bin is super simple to put together and encourages lots of fine motor practice.

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Halloween Sensory Soup

Scooping, pouring, stirring, and mixing with a whisk are all great ways for little hands to practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Using measuring cups and spoons would be a great way to explore math concepts too.