Guide to Sensory Play – Why is it Important for Your Kids?

Kids like all of us are born with six senses – See, Listen, Touch, Smell, Taste & Move. As they grow up they begin to look to adapt them in what is generally called as ‘initial development phase’. Every kid will learn to use them and experience them in varied ways. While some kids learn to adapt them quickly and learn fast, others face certain limitations to one or more senses.

By engaging their senses, kids learn new things or facts of life. This aspect of engagement of senses is what experts refer to as Sensory Play that teaches kids how to visualise, process and interpret the world around them. Kids as they grow and evolve, get oriented towards these sensory experiences.

WHAT SENSORY PLAY MEANS?
Sensory Play is described as any activity that engages the senses, and stimulates them.

It is these sensory activities that encourage kids to use their senses while they play or explore things around them. They also allow them to absorb different sensory information that helps their brain to forge stronger connection with sensory information, and accordingly, process and respond to them. For instance, a kid would find it difficult initially to adjust in an environment with conflicting noises. Through sensory play, kids will learn to understand various noises, hear and adapt and then block out noises that are not of significance.
WHAT MAKES SENSORY PLAY VITAL FOR KIDS?

Factors that underline sensory play’s importance include:

• PROVIDES SENSORY INPUTS: When sensory play is in process each day, kids get newer and newer sensory inputs that facilitate brain development.
• FACILITATES BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: When kids get sensory inputs, they absorb the world around them. When their senses are thus engaged, neural pathways in their brain gets created. This will allow them to soak in their senses and body responses which in turn facilitate their learning process throughout their life.
• ENSURES BETTER RETENTION: As kids use more of their senses during learning process, they learn to retain better what they’re learning.
• REGULATES EMOTIONS: Some aspects of sensory play help kids to regulate their emotions better, stay calm, and focussed. All of these will help them better regulate their behavioural process.
• ENHANCES MOTOR SKILLS: Certain movements during sensory play like sorting, placing, pinching, squeezing, and scooping, help kids to improve their motor skills and coordinate in a better way.
• INCULCATES SOCIAL SKILLS: With each sensory experience alongside others, kids or grown-ups, they begin to learn how to share, negotiate, bargain, discuss, and plan. All these will be part of their social skills development.
• INCULCATES SCIENTIFIC REASONING SKILLS: Kids also learn to become inquisitive, ask questions and learn about the cause and effect of sensory objects. They will also learn how to use and work out such sensory objects.
• DEVELOPS LANGUAGE SKILLS: Sensory play process also allows kids to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and other sensory feelings experienced through their body sensations. They begin to learn words and what it means; this way, they also broaden their language vocabulary.

Learning is a never-ending process for every human. Kids are no exception to this. Continuous evolution of sensory play ignites interest in kids to learn newer things and keep on learning.

As kids grow-up, sensory play becomes more mature, and helps build newer nerve connections in the brain. This will broaden their range of learning opportunities and coaxes them to actively harness their senses to exploit them. As they explore the larger world around them through sensory play, their brains will develop further and attain increasing maturity. At this stage, kids will begin to develop interest in complex processes and learn what it means, what it can do and what can be done with it.

One of the better ways to facilitate growing kids learning process is through Toys. Quality and interesting toys that sparks interest in them is what will drive them to learn more.

What better way to learn than to learn with toys made by ALPAKS, a leading Hyderabad based kid’s toy brand and children toy maker. The very fact that ALPAKS, has been in the market for 21 years and still going strong, tells clearly as to what a respected name it is in the world of toys.

ALPAKS since inception has developed hundreds of interactive toys for children – from clay to educational toys to innovative furniture and more. Every ALPAKS toy has been crucial in helping ticking kid’s and children’s innovative minds and fuel their curiosity to try out and experiment with various toys.

Known for its stringent quality standards, ALPAKS toys today are widely used in schools and nursery centres across Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana and AP. They have also been enormously successful in inculcating in young kids, the importance of environment and the need for developing healthy environmental-friendly habits.

CONCLUSION

For every kid, the desire to engage with sensory play and learn comes naturally. Sensory play shapes what kids believe to be positive and safe in their brains. This eventually, makes, impacts, and moulds their behaviour.