10 Sensory Play Activities for Toddlers You Can Do at Home Today
Sensory play isn't just fun — it's essential for your toddler's development. Every time a child squishes playdough, pours water, or digs in sand, they are building neural connections in the brain that support language, concentration, and problem-solving.
Here are 10 simple sensory activities I use regularly at Dees Curious Minds that you can easily recreate at home.
1. Coloured Rice Tray
Fill a deep tray with uncooked rice dyed with food colouring. Add spoons, cups, and small animals or cars. Children can pour, scoop, and explore to their hearts' content.
What it develops: Fine motor skills, cause and effect, imaginative play.
2. Water Play with Tools
A plastic tray filled with water plus cups, spoons, sponges, and funnels. Simple — but utterly absorbing for children aged 1–4.
What it develops: Early science concepts (volume, floating/sinking), hand-eye coordination.
3. Homemade Playdough
Mix 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 2 cups water, 2 tbsp oil, and food colouring. Cook gently until it forms a ball. Children love helping make it — and then playing with it for weeks.
What it develops: Creativity, hand strength, imagination, early maths (shapes, sizes).
4. Mud Kitchen / Outdoor Digging
If you have a garden, give your toddler a patch of soil, some old pots, spoons, and water. Let them dig, mix, and create. It's gloriously messy and gloriously educational.
What it develops: Physical development, understanding the world, risk-taking and resilience.
5. Sensory Bag (No Mess!)
Seal hair gel or shaving foam with glitter inside a ziplock bag and tape it shut. Children press, slide, and squish safely without getting messy. Great for travel or quiet time.
What it develops: Tactile exploration, focus, calm regulation.
6. Ice Excavation
Freeze small toys (plastic dinosaurs, letters, buttons) in a block of ice. Give your child warm water in a pipette or small bottle and let them excavate the toys.
What it develops: Problem-solving, fine motor skills, early science concepts.
7. Finger Painting
Straight onto paper — or even into the bathtub walls — with washable paint. No brushes needed. Just hands, colours, and freedom.
What it develops: Creativity, self-expression, EYFS Expressive Arts area.
8. Nature Walk Bag
Go on a walk with a small bag. Collect leaves, stones, twigs, flowers, and feathers. Bring them home and sort them by colour, size, or texture.
What it develops: Understanding the World, early categorisation and maths thinking.
9. Oobleck (Cornflour and Water)
Mix cornflour with water until you get a strange liquid that feels solid when you squeeze it. Messy, magical, and endlessly fascinating.
What it develops: Scientific thinking, sensory exploration, language ("thick", "runny", "solid", "liquid").
10. Sound Shakers
Fill plastic bottles or small tubs with different materials: rice, buttons, coins, sand, bells. Seal tightly and let children shake, compare, and sort by sound.
What it develops: Early music concepts, auditory discrimination, language development.
"The mess is the learning. The cleanup is the life skill." — Denise
At Dees Curious Minds, sensory play is a daily part of our EYFS-aligned programme. Find out more about our setting or get in touch to arrange a visit.