Sensory Box Explorations

Oh how I love the sensory box and kids tend to love them so much they spend a fair amount of time exploring them. Sensory boxes can be any kind of box, bin, or container full of fun items that engage the senses you know, touch, sound, smell and sometimes taste (for Taya taste is still important at 20 months!)


We have had a few over the past year so I have a little catch up to do on this post and in the future I hope to post one at a time as we are doing them. 


We started when Taya was about 9 months but you could start way sooner - there are so many possibilities and if you think about it a bath is a sensory experience too. 

Taya playing with water coloured ice cubes (water colours wash out way better then food colouring). I used IKEA fish and flower ice cube trays

we added a little water with the ice cubes which melted after a little while in the sun

Once Baby T was walking I asked my wonderful babydaddy to build me a sensory table (I am lucky he is handy!). Baby T was very used to having a sensory box on the floor but she would almost always want to sit in it amongst the play. Really though who wouldn't want to explore it while sitting in it what ever it is?! With her standing over the box it changed the experience and what she did with the items in the box. We still on occasion will take the tub and put it on the floor for her to explore. 

Here is the box filled with rolled oats which was great for her to explore in her hand and mouth! I added pine cones, they made a great sound when pouring oats over.

Here was our Christmas sensory box. I put garlands, bells, ornaments, candy cane decorations. It was fun for the holidays and was a great place for her to explore christmas stuff without taking everything off our tree! 

One thing to keep in mind with sensory items is to start simple. Coloured sand is beautiful but to a child regular sand is amazing - in fact try really looking at it again it is just as intriguing as coloured sand. Keep the scoops and containers minimal or just pick one to start. Once the initial investigation has taken place slowly add more intriguing items to the box. This extends the child's experience their knowledge of the items and makes it possible to use the boxes for longer periods of time. Another thing to remember that it can possibly be overwhelming to be presented with a box full of a sensory item and many tools which then might dictate the type of play that occurs. 

Through a sensory box children learn: 

Math Concepts 

By playing with cups, spoons etc they discover the idea of volume, more, less, full, empty, weight.  

Science concepts 

What happens if..... (fill in the blank) or what is happening (referring to melting, changing colours etc) 

The photos above our a bunch of the boxes we have done so far. I have our current sensory box to post shortly but wanted to get these one out there. Hope you try your own they are lots of fun!