For young children, sensory play is key to their development. While many kids get this naturally through simply interacting with their environment, it never hurts to add some sensory-specific activities into their days either. Fortunately, TikTok is filled with parents who've developed sensory games that are often mess-free, edible, and safe for your little ones.
According to Healthline, sensory play is any play that activates a child's senses — sight, touch, and taste. In addition to that, these activities often encourage your kids to work on their fine motor skills by pinching, pulling, poking, and more.
There are 15 activities to choose from, and all are relatively simple and cheap to put together. So find the ones that are right for your kiddos and get playing!
Kids' Veggie Garden
This sensory game helps kids plant, harvest, wash, and sort toy veggies. You'll need one bin filled with "dirt" (made of cooked flour, cocoa powder, and vegetable oil) and one with water and a brush for them to clean with. Then get some buckets for them to sort the veggies by name or color. As a bonus, the dirt is edible in case your kids love to put everything in their mouths.
Tub Time Entertainment
Make giant "beads" by cutting up pool noodles and having kids string them into necklaces or stack them into towers. Not only will this work on their fine motor skills, but it will be enough of a distraction that you might be able to wash their hair quickly and efficiently. Any way to make bath time smoother is a win for us.
The Perfect Outdoor Activity
Take cardboard or poster board and cut out some shapes, like a butterfly, flower, sun, you name it. Put tape along the back so the sticky side can be seen through the holes. Then have your kiddos collect foliage (fallen leaves, flower petals, bark, etc.) to fill in the shapes. Just make sure they're not accidentally foraging in a neighbor's flower garden!
Edible Bread Painting
Whoever said "don't play with your food" must not have been a very fun person. There's a time and a place to play with food, like with this edible bread paint recipe. Next time you make sandwiches, let your little ones decorate the bread. All you need is food coloring and a hot water/sugar mixture. The colors will show up best on plain white bread.
Rainbow Game
Help children work on their sensory skills by painting a rainbow on a piece of cardboard. Carefully use a knife to cut slashes in all the different colors and then hand kids a set of rainbow popsicle sticks. They can work on matching the color of the stick to the color on the board and also on their ability to push the stick into its slot.
DIY Busy Board
Many kids find everyday household items fascinating. For instance, they always want to play with our keys. So you'll really blow the little one's mind if you make her a busy board. Just take a poster board and hot glue a bunch of dollar store items to it. You can use things like a calculator, chain lock, pill container, etc. Your child will have so much fun tinkering around with all of the different objects.
Chalk Prints
This is a great activity for kids who are a little older. Fill a bucket with water and have them use a nail file to scrape chalk dust onto the surface of the water. When they have all the colors they want, they can gently lay a piece of paper on top for a few seconds. When they take the paper out, it should be decorated with all the colorful chalk. Then just let it dry (right outside in the sun, if you want) and they can use it for card-making or coloring.
Spaghetti Pull
After you cook a batch of spaghetti, separate the noodles into bowls and add different food coloring drops until you have a bunch of colors of pasta. Then put the noodles in a strainer (pulling them through the holes a bit will work on your fine motor skills, too) and let your child pinch and pull the pasta the rest of the way out. If they eat some, it's totally OK.
Teeth Brushing Hack
Have a little one who's struggling with teeth brushing? This game may make it fun and exciting for him. Cut a crocodile head shape out of cardboard, add ping pong ball eyes, and then hot glue white beans into the mouth for teeth. Give your child a toothbrush so he can scrub all the spots made by a dry erase marker. Then, next time he needs to clean his own teeth, he'll have a better understanding of how.
Mess-Free Painting
Finger painting is super fun, but it's also super messy. Cut down on the chaos by filling a zip-top bag with paint instead. Kids can swirl the colors around through the plastic without getting any on their hands. Definitely supervise in case the kiddo pops a hole in the bag or figures out how to get it open, but this should work wonders.
Food-Safe Finger Paint
If you don't mind a little finger paint mess, but you have a child who is always eating everything, you can make this edible paint. It's made by blending cereal, water, and food coloring, so your child can safely eat it. But hopefully, she'll at least make you a pretty picture with the paint before devouring it.
Baking Soda Earth
Add blue and green food coloring to baking soda and place it on a tray to make the ocean and continents (no pressure to get the shapes right). Then have your kids sort plastic animals into which ones live on land or in the sea. After that, hand them a small amount of vinegar so they can turn all the baking soda to fizz.
The Name Game
Help your little one begin to learn his name with this fun activity. First, write his name on a big piece of cardboard and punch holes along each letter. Then give him cotton swabs to place in the holes. When he's done, he'll have spelled his name and worked on his fine motor skills. It's a win-win!
Underwater Play
Make an ocean-themed sensory bin by making blue Jell-O and adding blended Cheerios for sand. "Trap" some ocean toys in the Jell-O for your kiddo to rescue. The best part? If she eats it, that's OK. It's just cereal and gelatin. Food-safe sensory games are the best, because they cut down on a lot of parent stress.
Jell-O Swamp
Another Jell-O sensory idea is to use green gelatin to make a swamp. Add things, like bark and rocks, as well as plastic reptiles for the kids to free from the Jell-O. They'll have a ton of fun playing, and, again, if they eat the sticky stuff, no worries. Just watch little ones around small toys and rocks if you use those.
