Sensory play is so important in a child’s life.
It allows the child to learn through play but also gives them a better sense of touch, smell, taste, and smell. There are many activities you can do with your child who has Cerebral Palsy. I always say to never treat your child any differently, even if they do have some limitations, that only means that they experience the world a bit differently, and that’s totally okay!
Here are some great sensory activities that you can do at home with your child who has Cerebral Palsy.
1. Shaving Cream Activity
Everyone loves to play with shaving cream! The possibilities are endless when it comes to it, too. You can add glitter, food coloring, water, glue… there’s so much you can add! On top of adding to your shaving cream, there are so many different ways to play with it. You can place shaving cream and food coloring into a zip lock bag, and let your child mix the colors together and watch all the changing colors. You can get really hands on and just spray the shaving cream onto a table and let the kids get super messy and draw with it. You can place glitter in the shaving cream and let them kids swirl the glitter into it, creating a very pretty picture! One last idea, you can get a glass of water and place the shaving cream on top of the water, then add food coloring to create “clouds”.
It really is endless on the sensory activities you can create with shaving cream!
2. Painting with Cars
This sensory activity really focuses on touch and sight. Grab a bin of your choice and tape some paper onto the bottom. Grab some Hot Wheels in any kind of safe nontoxic paint, then place the Hot Wheels onto the paper and let your kids go at it! Rather they play with the cars or move the bin around to make them move on their own, the artwork at the end is a piece of art they can cherish and it’s fun for them to create time and time again!
3. Playing with Ice
This is a fun chilly sensory activity, and can be used in many different ways! This activity focuses on touch and taste. You can simply just place ice cubes into a bin and let your child play with the ice and watch it melt in their hands. You can also add water to the bin and place the ice cubes in the water with some toys, allowing them to give the toys an “Ice Bath”. One last idea is you can make ice cubes with different food colorings, place them into bins and as they melt, your child can watch the colors come together.
4. Moon Sand
This one takes a bit of time to create but can be used more than one time with proper care. All you need is eight cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil. Mix the flour and baby oil together to create this super soft and playful ‘sand’ for hours of play! Let your child use their imagination to build anything they would like. This activity focuses on touch.
5. Monster Sensory Bin
Make your own monsters with different items: sponges, balls, cars, toilet paper holders, soap bars… you can make a monster into anything, really! Draw some eyes, ears, and mouths on them or attach googly eyes to them all. Place them into a bin and let your child feel the different monsters that you have placed in the bin. You can also let them take them out of the bin and use their imaginations and play with them, too! You can let them smell the monsters if you used soap bars or scented sponges to allow them to all smell differently. You can use food items and let them taste the monsters to get a better understanding of textures and tastes, this could definitely go along with my How to Overcome Picky Eaters(link to article) article I posted awhile back, too!
There are many different ways to incorporate sensory play in a child’s life. It’s very important to use sensory play to get them to understand all the different touches, smells and tastes that are in the world.
What kind of sensory activities do you use with your child?
