Top Sensorimotor Development Tools For DIY Sensory Boxes
Great Additions For A Fresh Sensory Box To Enhance Sensorimotor Development In Your Home Or Classroom
Do you have a kiddo or student who benefits from extra sensory stimulation?
Some kiddos can benefit greatly from a quiet, out of the way corner that is enhanced with well designed sensory stimuli. It can calm and help them focus and all-around nurture their sensorimotor development.
Bear Paw Creek specializes in music and movement props, most of which are great additions to a wide variety of sensory boxes.
What Sensorimotor Development Tools Are Good For Sensory Boxes?
According to OT Mom, there are no hard and fast rules for what to put into a Sensory box. Instead, the key is to observe the child and discern what textures, weights, and other stimuli are more pleasurable to them. A good variety of objects are a good idea to start with, then you can tailor the boxes to be more effective as you progress.
Where Should I Place My Sensory Box?
It’s great if you can create a special room or a specific place in the corner of the room to devote to sensorimotor exploration, focus, and calming.
Bean bag chairs are a great tool to use here. They help define even a small space and many kids love the tactile stimulation they provide.
Music is an amazing addition to this space as it is known to encourage both focus and calm. Noise-canceling headphones might also be a great addition.
A weighted blanket or lap toy might be invaluable to keep in this area as they are known for their grounding abilities.
Top Tools To Add To Your DIY Sensory Box
Basically, for the sensory boxes themselves, you are wanting to provide objects for tactile experiences and objects that can be manipulated or fiddled with.
As for textures they can be soft, smooth, rough, prickly, hard, smooth, fluffy, and more. Start with a few objects with different textures and see what your child gravitates to.
Your contributions for objects to manipulate or fiddle with you can include a myriad of choices from fidget spinners, to small objects in a container. Think nesting boxes, velcro, squishy balls, hair scrunchies, and bead necklaces.
Here Are Our Top Ideas To Include In Your DIY Sensory Boxes To Enhance Your Kiddo's Sensorimotor Development…
Textured Bean Bags are wonderful for all kinds of sensory input! There is the texture and feel of the gritty beads inside as well as the texture of our special material it is covered with. Each set comes with several different textures. These can also be stored in your sensory box inside a bag or tub to be dumped and put back in.
Streamers have a lighter feel than our Bean Bags, along with the fine, rough texture of the material. They are great for waving and watching the visual effect of the streamers floating in the air.
Our Wrist Streamers have the extra tactile input of the scrunchie band feel to the handle. Whereas the original streamers have the hard and smooth tactile experience of the rubber tubing handle.
Jingle Bell Wrist Scrunchies have the extra sensory input of the bells. They are just what they sound like, an elastic scrunchi that goes over the wrist that has jingle bells attached to it. Colorful, tactile, and auditory input.
Our Stretchy Band is perfect for a sensory box because of it's elasticity, color, weight, and size. A single Stretchy Band makes a nice solid feeling in one's lap while it can be stretched, manipulated, coiled up, and shaken out. A child can fit inside it and feel the tension of the stretchy elastic on his whole body. The uses for this one tool are almost endless!
Snowball Movement Prop Set is a real gem for tactile sensorimotor input! The snowballs themselves are silky and solid and the material slides against itself when it's manipulated between your fingers. This one is so much fun.
Individual Chiffon Movement Scarves are just the thing to fill a whole box with! They slip and slide and are a textural delight to stick your hand in the midst of.
Have Fun And Be Creative Encouraging Sensorimotor Development With Sensory Boxes
Have fun and get creative finding new tools to put in your sensory boxes. Over time you will get better and better at figuring out just what kind of sensory input your child needs in order to ground himself, calm down, and focus. Your sensory boxes will become fantastic and you will have some amazing resources to enhance your child's sensorimotor development. You can also check out this How to Build a Sensory Room at Home article.
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