One of the very first homemade therapy activities that I put together for Caitlin was her Sensory Box. When she was little, she would get so excited when I gave her sensory box to her to play with as she absolutely loved exploring everything inside. Even today at the age of seven I notice her getting her box off her toy shelf and still enjoying exploring the contents.
All you need is a box with a lid; I purchased a box from a discount shop, but a shoe box would do the same trick. The idea is to then fill the box with items of different sizes, shapes and textures, most of these I just purchased from a discount shop for a few dollars each. Items such as bead necklaces, slinkies, cat balls with a bell inside, linking rings, balls (soft, hard, spikey and bumpy), a glittery wand, rattles, small animals (soft, spikey and furry). It’s amazing what you can also find around the house to add in the sensory box as well; bubble wrap, ball of wool, bottle lids, scrunched up alfoil, small nail brush, sponges, nail filing board, cotton balls and even a piece of fake grass.
It’s very important that whatever goes into your box when your child is exploring it, they are closely monitored in case anything goes in their mouth and doesn’t become a choking hazard. This was tricky for us with Caitlin when she was younger as she liked to rub/feel things on her face and around her mouth, so we did have to do a lot of quick pouncing sometimes before something went into her mouth.
Once you have put together the contents of your child’s Sensory Box you can let them explore it independently with you looking on. You can explore the box together; describing the textures to your child and then moving on to asking your child to describe the texture of what they are holding. This will help enhance their sensory experience with the box. These items can also be used for fine motor skills development activities; grasping the rings from different heights, reaching up to pull the beads out of your hand, turning the wand up and down to make the glitter move plus from one hand to the other, stretching the slinky with both hands, grasping and dropping the balls.
