Sensory play is one of the most important activities a preschool child can enjoy. Our alphabet sensory bags are the perfect pre-writing activity for preschool students. Your student practices the shape and sound of each letter through sensory input and play.
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What Are Sensory Bags
Sensory bags are a sealed and less messy way for your child to explore sensory feedback. Use a zipper bag to contain a textural element that still feels interesting through the plastic of the bag. It’s not as messy as playing directly with shaving cream or paint, but it’s just as valuable. Sensory feedback is any information experienced by the body through one of the five senses: taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight.
Sensory Bag Benefits
Children crave sensory input. Sensory bags are a huge buzzword for special learners, but in fact, all children need and benefit tremendously from sensory play. Sensory input provides important feedback for young children as they explore the world for the first time. Grass on the feet, the heat coming from a candle or fireplace, rain on the face, and bathtime are all sensory experiences from which children learn about the world. Children under six are uniquely wired to learn from sensory input and are the perfect age to combine the benefits of sensory play with learning experiences like learning the alphabet. Our alphabet sensory bags will engage your child in the learning process in a way no other experience will mimic.
Sensory Bag Ideas
You can use sensory bags in so many different ways! Babies and toddlers can explore and play with sensory bags without any other learning agenda. Toddlers and preschool children can draw and learn shapes, letters, words, and colors with their sensory bags. We made our sensory bags with paint for this activity, but you can use almost anything that provides tactile feedback. In fact, we encourage you to try a variety of bag fillers. Fill your sensory bags with any of the following items.
- paint. Washable tempera paints work great and are fairly cheap.
- rice. Any rice will work fine.
- shaving foam. Old-fashioned cheap shaving foam is still the best for sensory play!
- gel. Any type of gel is an interesting play material.
- water beads. Water beads are fun and squishy and can be reused over and over.
- play foam. This foam made of tiny foam beads is both sticky and squishy and can be molded into shapes.
- dry beans. Cheap and easy to find, beans sealed in a zipper bag are a safe way to play.
- dried lentils. Similar to rice, but more round in shape, lentils switch things up a bit!
How to Make Sensory Bags
Making sensory bags is so easy! All you need is zipper bags like these, and something to put in the bag that will provide a tactile experience for your preschooler. Seal the bag with packing tape so that it won’t “accidentally come open”. If you want to make the sensory learning experience stationary, you’ll also need removable painter’s tape. Fill the bag partway with any textural element from the list above. Remove the air and seal the bag. Tape in place on a window, desk, table, or floor and let your child explore. Older children can use sensory bags that have not been secured in place. Our paint sensory bags are squishy and fun to play with.
Materials to Make Alphabet Sensory Bags DIY
- Large zipper bag
- paint
- packing tape
- Optional – Cotton Bud (aka Q-Tip) Drawing the letters with both the pointer finger and a q-tip provides two different types of sensory experience. Holding a cotton bud also helps the student work on the pincer grip needed for handwriting.
Alphabet Sensory Bags for Preschool
As a pre-writing activity, help your children explore the shape and sound of each letter. Work on the letters you already know for review. As your student writes each letter in the paint using a finger or a cotton bud, say the sound of the letter a few times together.
- Pour some paint into your ziplock bag and seal tightly.
- Use some packing tape to ensure that your learner cannot open the ziplock bag.
- Tape the top of the ziplock bag to a table or window.
- Have your learner use either their finger or a cotton bud to draw shapes, numbers, letters, sight words etc
