Sensory Activities for 6-12 Months
Sensory activities have so many benefits for our babies. Now only are babies exploring their 5 senses, but they are also learning to explore and exercising their creativity!
According to the Urban Child Institute, your baby’s brain with double in size in the first two years! With so much growth happening, it’s important to help facilitate as many beneficial activities as possible!
What is Sensory Play?
Sensory play includes any activity that incorporates the five common senses.
Activities that involve movement of the body, such as awareness or position of their body) can also be considered sensory activates. When you think about it, so many activities that our babies do in their day-to-day play could be considered a sensory activity! If you would like to browse all of the sensory activities, we have shared on Little Learning Club, you can do so here.
A few examples of sensory play include balancing while walking on a curb, making moon sand, or doing a taste test of a variety of fruits. Listening to kids audio books is another fun and educational sensory activity!
Benefits of Sensory Play
Creating activities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through sensory play is crucial to brain development. Sensory Play helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways. Sensory activities encourages the development of fine and gross motor skills as well as language developments. While they idea of setting up an activity that has THIS many benefits may seem intimidating, it is actually quite simple! The more you research these types of activities, the more you realize that there are opportunities for sensory learning just about everywhere!
The Benefits of Sensory Play in Babies (0mo-12mo)
Sensory play helps babies to learn more about the world around them! Sensory play time creates a whole new world of stimuli (think new textures they have never felt or new sounds they have never heard). Your babies brain creates new connections as they play and experience all these new stimulations. Simple sensory play can help your baby grow in so many ways!
Here are a few of the top sensory activities we have done with our daughter, Nora. If you feel your baby may be ready for the next level of activities, we also have a great post on activities for 12-18 months. Check it out here.
Before you leave, be sure to also check out:
Rainbow Spaghetti: An edible sensory activity
Baby Finger Paint: 2 ingredient edible paint!
Box and String Lights
We recently moved and have SO many left over moving boxes! We have used a few for Emmy… we simply put her in a large box with a few markers and she spends hours just coloring away! So we wanted to find something fun to do with Nora and the boxes. We poked a few holes in the top and added some string lights!
Easy, cheap and totally a HIT!
If you don’t have a short set of string lights at home, you can find a HUGE selection here with a ton of colors and bulb types.
If baby is too young to sit up on their own, you could easily put some safe padding down in the box and lay them so they are able to see the lights. A Boppy loungerwould come in handy for this activity! Be sure to keep an eye on them while they are inside!
Sensory Baskets
It can be common for babies to not be too fond of tummy time. Nora was definitely one of these babies! We had to work hard to keep things interesting for her which is where our sensory baskets came in. We would take a small basket and fill it with all sorts of colorful and interesting objects. Some days it was as simple as shiny and light up objects (metal measuring spoon set, a small handheld mirror, a large bouncy ball with lights in it). You really just have to pinpoint what captivates your baby and catches their eye and find different objects that fall into that.
No matter what objects you add to their basket, be sure there are always supervised while playing with them.
Jello Dig
While this activity took the #1 spot by a mile, I have to share that I made a BIG mistake with this one!
The Jello dig was as simple to make as it looks… 3 packets of sugar-free Jello and throw in some toys. However, I made a HUGE mistake by picking red yellow for this activity! Her hands were instantly stained. We bathed her right after the activity (obviously) and then again that night and luckily by the next morning it had faded. I would suggest going with yellow or the Jello naturals brand, which doesn’t contain food dye.
Edible Baby Sand
It was a tough competition between the Jello dig and the Baby sand for first place. The Jello Dig seemed to keep Nora entertained for longer (she seriously played in it for almost an hour!). I think the Baby Sand would have been better if I had included some fun items in the sand such as bowls or other sensory objects.
I made the baby sand with graham crackers and oatmeal!
I used an entire box of graham crackers (about 25 crackers or so). I broke them up into smaller pieces by hand and placed them in a blender on the “liquefy” setting. I did the same with the oatmeal and them mixed the two together in the Tupperware. I made sure to run my hands through the sand before I put Nora in to make sure there were no large pieces of cracker left.
A wise investment if you plan to do more activities with your little in the future would be a shallow bin for the activities. The bin you see below was ordered for $5 from Targetand has been used for countless activities. We used it in our colorful spaghetti, rainbow rice, moon sand… it has gotten a lot of use! You can check to see if they are in stock at your Target here.
Exploring Temperatures
This was such a simple activity to put together! I simply added ice cubes and water to one water bottle and hot water from our sink to the other (I wouldn’t suggest adding anything hotter than that to the bottle! It does not need to be that hot in order to feel the heat through the bottle). I sat with Nora and showed her each bottle one by one and let her feel them and told her what each one was. Then encourages her to feel them both at the same time.
Big sister got in on this activity and she enjoyed it as well!
Baby Bell Feet
The only thing cuter than those baby toes was watching little Nora stomp around with bells around her feet! Seriously, it was adorable!
I purchased the bells from Amazon (here’s the link) and used thin ribbon I had lying around from a previous project. I strung them through and strapped them on her little ankles and the fun began! Baby Bell Feet doubles as a great gross motor skill activity as well.
Again, be sure to watch your little ones when they have their bells on. The ribbon could easily come untied and the bells could pose a chocking hazard.
More Sensory Activity Ideas From Bloggers we LOVE:
Sponge and Water Play
Casey, who runs Little Lifelong Learners, is constantly providing new and exciting ideas on her website and on her Instagram. This easy to set up activity is just one of the amazing activities you can find on Little Lifelong Learners.
Peek A Boo Sensory Board
Made from Cardoabrd and Baby Wipe lids, this peek a boo sensory board from Baby Play Hacks is sure to keep your little one entertained for hours. Get the full tutorial here.
Wildflower Ramblings also has a great sensory board tutorial for those of you who may not have the wipe lids on hand. Check it out here.
Mama, Papa, Bubba is a great resource for parents looking for activities for babies and toddlers. While their post on discovery baskets is similar to our sensory baskets, I wanted to dedicate an entire section to their blog because their ideas are just so cute. Be sure to head over and get all the details on their discovery baskets here.
Baby Balloon Kick
How adorable is this idea from Kate at Laughing Kids Learn? Its such a fun activity with so many sensory benefits for baby. Kate’s website is full of great ideas. Be sure to also check out her Oil and Glitter sensory bag idea here.
Sensory Ring
While similar to a sensory board, a sensory ring is a great way to also work your babies motor skills. The ring encourages them to use their arms and legs to move around to see the other objects. It’s also a great tummy time activity to help strengthen the neck muscles. Image via Pinterest.
Sarah’s website is full of great activities for littles. Her sensory play with fruit is just one example of the engaging activities she provides. Check out her full website here.
Sensory Umbrella
Oh the possibilities of things you could do with this activity! Best Toys 4 Toddlers has a great turotial on their site for how they attached all of these fun knick knacks. Read it here.
More Activities for your Little One:
