Sensory Play

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name is Emma. And welcome to today's lesson. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder, we here at Oak, are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session I'll be talking about sensory play. Together we'll be doing some thinking about the stages of messy or sensory play, and what stage you're at, and then what we can do to help you develop your play. There'll be lots of opportunity for some sensory play at home. And then three of these tasks, I'll also be setting adults a couple of activities to really help you get the most out of your play together. For today's session, you'll need some of your favourite toys. If you've got some, it would be great if we had some sand or some shredded paper, this could just be newspaper or an old magazine ripped up into little pieces. Adults, you'll need some writing equipment and the downloadable resources available with this lesson on the Oak website. So before we begin, find yourself a quiet place where you won't be disturbed. Turn off any notifications or distractions that you might have running on your device. Make sure that both you and your adult are sat comfortably. And then when you're ready, let's begin. Okay. Let's start by doing some talking and thinking about sensory or messy play. As we talked about in lesson one, children learn to explore through their senses. It helps children to learn what to do with objects and more about the world around them. Sensory exploration gives children a greater understanding of items. For example, what they feel like, smell like or look like. It also helps children to develop things like joint attention, concentration, looking, listening, motor skills, and even turn taking. Sensory play should always be really fun and really engaging. But activities should be introduced gradually and always guided by the child. There's no right or wrong way to interact with an object during sensory or messy play. So we must remember adults that children should never be forced to engage or join in with a type of sensory play if it causes them distress. For the first activity, we're going to have a go at some stage one sensory play. This is where we're going to play with some hard and dry textures. Children, it's time to sensory play. First of all, we need to hide our toys in our shredded paper or sand. Adults, you need to start by showing the child the toys that you're going to hide in the sand or the paper. Then, model searching for the toys. Use simple language like, "Where's the car?" When you find the toy, use a really excited voice to say that you found it. Then encourage your child to join in. Never force the child to touch the sand or the paper, but follow the steps in the downloadable resources to help you through these activities. Go at the child's pace and then finish the activity before the child has lost interest or gets distressed. When you're finished looking for your toys in your hard or dry textures, come back to the video and press play, and we'll continue. Children will react differently to different types of sensory play. Some enjoy all types of sensory play, whereas others might have preferences or things that they would rather avoid. And this is okay. Some children need more support to take part in sensory play that is not of their preference or choosing. What's important though, is how we the adults react to an item or type of sensory play. Our reaction can really influence how a child reacts. So it's important that we emphasise enjoyment and model engagement through sensory play. This will really encourage the child to enjoy it too. For a second, for a moment, I'd like you to pause the video to reflect on how the child participated in stage one of sensory play. That was the activity that we just competed, finding our toys in paper or sand. Once you've had a moment to think, come back to the video and press play and we'll continue with the lesson. Before considering, whether it's appropriate for your child to move from stage one to stage two messy play, we need to ask ourselves these six questions, 'cause it will help us to determine what level is appropriate for your child. If your child was able to take the toy out of the tray that had the dry and hard material in it, when that toy was fully hidden completely on their own then move on to stage two messy play, exploring some different textures. If they weren't able to do this, then that's absolutely fine. Take some time to use the downloadable resource, to read the other five steps along the way, to really help you think about what you could model, encourage and support your child to extend through that play, to help them get towards being able to find the toy that was fully hidden on their own. For example, if your child was at the stage where they were just able to watch you find the toys, what you might want to consider is working towards the child holding your arm while you find the toys. You could use any of these stages to help you think about what the next step needs to be for you and your child through your messy play. So if your child is ready to move on, it's time for a little more messy play. You can either continue at stage one or you can move on to stage two. Adults, use the downloadable resource to find ways to help at stage one if you're continuing here, or to find details for activity two, playing with soft textures. I've included steps along the way in the downloadable resource that will help you observe what level of sensory play your child is at. When you're finished your next bit of sensory play, whether it's stage one or stage two, come back to the video and press play and we'll continue with the rest of the lesson. When we're thinking about working through the stages of messy play, it's important that we remember we should work through each stage one at a time and at the child's pace. We can gently encourage the child through sensory play, but it should never be forced. Messy is actively encouraged though. So when we're engaging in this kind of play we the adults need to try hard to only wash our hands, when the activity has come to an end. And try and make activities as fun as possible so that we're joining in but it encourages the child to join in too. As well as setting aside time for messy play, we can also try and include sensory or messy play in our everyday lives. Such as cooking, gardening or at bath time. Here's our last opportunity for a little bit more sensory play. Adults, based on how your child has engaged with the other activities, you can either continue at stage one or two or move on to stage three, playing with soft and wet textures. Use a downloadable resource if you're looking for ways to continue to develop at stage one or stage two, or for some ideas for what to do as a third activity, playing with soft and wet textures. Use the steps along the way page to observe what level of sensory play your child is at. And when you're finished come back to the video and press play so we will continue with the rest of the lesson. Use the downloadable resources for more ideas on how to develop sensory play at home. It's really important that you're talking to your child's school about what stage of sensory play they're at, and what kind of play activities they're using at school, so that you can try and replicate some of these at home. Don't forget to also use the Adult Communication Strategies Checklist to help promote your child's attention during play. There are also resources to help you record and reflect on how your child is engaging and progressing with sensory play at home. Well that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic sensory play you've achieved today. I've got two final things I'd like you to do now. First adults, look back at your notes and identify three important things that you've learned today. Second, if you're able to, please take a picture of some of your sensory or messy play and record this in your sensory play diary in the downloadable resources attached. Ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher at school so they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your play at home. And if you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your play time record book, to @OakNational on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, so I can see your lovely progress too. Well, that's all that's left for me to say, but thank you very much for listening. Take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today. Bye bye.

Sensory Play

Sensory Play

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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