What are Sensory Activities? - Benefits & Importance | Study.com (2024)

All students benefit from sensory activities. Engaging activities that use the senses develop neural pathways in young children's brains. For students of all abilities, using a procedure or tool in a classroom that engages their senses can make a lesson more meaningful and memorable. All students may have different moments when they might need helping calming down, or maintaining focus, so learning how sensory activities can be included will only enrich your classroom.

Playing in the sand is very calming for many people.

Sometimes the activities happening in a busy classroom can ramp a student up, or make them feel stressed. Some students feel sensory situations so strongly that they need some time to rest from the experience, such as a child who was overwhelmed by the fire alarm. Calming activities include a wide range of experiences and can be adjusted to fit the needs of the individual and the situation. Sitting in a bean bag chair to read can be calming. Many young students find playing with their hands in water or sand to be calming. Older students might enjoy watching and listening to a small waterfall. The goal of a calming activity is simply to help the student relax tension and calm themselves down so that they can get back to learning.

While some students need outlets to return to a calm equilibrium, other students need more stimulation to keep their brains going. For many students with ADHD, using a small fidget item at their desk can keep their brains engaged in the class discussion. Many students who balance their chairs on two legs are trying to engage their sense of balance in this way as a coping skill. Their bodies do not want to be still. And so, these actions help students maintain focus when they might be easily distracted or want to slow down.

Especially for older students, combining sensory activities with assignments as part of the academic routine can be helpful. For young students, having a center that uses sensory play as part of the daily rotations may be a possibility. Listening to ocean sounds while working on their writing assignment can help students keep themselves calm while doing a task they do not enjoy. Another sensory activity is to have students practice their sight words by tracing letters in boxes of sand, instead of merely writing the words down on paper.

Energizing games combine learning with sensory activity.

There are ways to combine energizing activities with learning tasks, too. Consider using exercise balls instead of chairs for students who prefer energizing sensory activities. After an intense session of concentration, encourage students to stand up and stretch to wake their bodies up. Have students do some jumping jacks, hop on one foot, dance along to a short song, or otherwise energize their bodies as a way to use their senses and refresh their bodies.

A sensory activity can be anything that engages the body through a sense, such as touch and sight, but even through balance and through proprioception (how the body relates and organizes itself). All students find calming and energizing sensory experiences beneficial, but for students with autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorders, such activities help the student create new neural pathways and adjust to stimuli at appropriate levels. Sensory activities can be combined with learning in the classroom, too.