Welcome to my Tuesday Tip. Each week over the summer I will post a Tip on how to encourage learning through play. Read my recent blog post to learn more about how free play supports deep learning. Today's tip is about letting your child get dirty so they can learn through sensory exploration:
Last week I wrote about baking something real that you can eat and enjoy: Baking to Learn. This week I want to write about allowing your children to get outside, get messy and stimulate their senses.
Sensory play has numerous benefits including fine motor skill development, emotional regulation and learning about sensory characteristics (what is hot, cold, smooth, rough, etc) which helps with classification and sorting skills. But, sensory play can be messy so many caregivers are reluctant to allow children to dive into sensory play.
Some examples of sensory play are:
* play doh
* finger painting
* shaving cream play
* dirt play
* sand play
* bubbles
* water play.
Through sensory play children can experiment with their sense of touch, learn to manipulate materials, create things, write or draw with different materials and self soothe.
Today’s tip is to embrace the mess (as I described in my blog about creek swimming) and let your child get dirty, play in the dirt and the mud and make mud pies. They might not be edible, but I guarantee your children will enjoy the freedom to get messy and let their imaginations go in their outdoor pretend kitchen.
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