Sensory Activities for Infants and Toddlers

During the first Friday of every month, Ready Set Learn focuses on the healthy development of our youngest children – infants and toddlers. While we know that the development of a young child’s brain takes years to complete, we also know there are many things parents and caregivers can do to help children get off to a good start for life-long learning. And through a partnership with Success By Six, we share some simple tips with our viewers. This month’s first Ready Set Learn activity focuses on infants from 0 to 3 months old. 

Young children discover new sensory experiences continuously within their environment. Everything is new and exciting, ready to be explored. They feel different surfaces and fabrics. They discover new smells and tastes. They hear different sounds. There are many sensory experiences you can share with your child. Take delight in watching your child explore new experiences for the first time.

What You Need:
Just YOU!

What You Do:
Read and Sing together

What You Do:
Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long

Toddler Sensory Activities

Feely bag
Take a cloth bag or pillow case and fill it with various items. Ideas are: a spoon, familiar small toy, cauliflower floret, piece of wood, wax crayon, hair brush.

Without allowing your toddler to see, get them to dip their hand into the bag and feel for one item. Before they remove the item have them guess what it is.

Smell Bottles
Lay out various bottles of items on a tray. Ideas are: Peanut Butter, perfume, lemon juice, coffee, tea and vinegar. Blind fold your child or ask them to keep their eyes tightly shut. Some young children do not like to be blindfolded as it brings a sense of disorientation to them.

Get your child to sniff each bottle, one at a time, and tell you what they smell.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

From childhood to adulthood, Fred Rogers has been a role model for me. His words of wisdom reached me through a television screen growing up and now through books, lesson plans, and memories. In fact, it was his amazing work that steered me to WQLN, the public broadcasting station in Northwestern Pennsylvania through which I host an educational television segment called: Ready, Set, Learn!

Ready, Set, Learn airs every Friday during the morning news on our “neighbor” ABC affiliate station, WJET-TV. The folks at WJET and WQLN truly are neighbors, both literally and figuratively. As a result, we collaboratively to produce an educational segment that reaches out to parents, teachers, and caregivers to provide educational tools, resources, and ideas. Each week I demonstrate a hands-on educational activity that parents and children can enjoy together. And of course, with every Ready, Set, Learn lesson I recommend a great children’s book for parents and children to read together. A complete archive of the lessons is available on the web at www.wqln.org/education.

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

This quote from Fred Rogers truly resonates with me and many other children of the neighborhood. And that is why Ready, Set, Learn encourages exploration, time together, nurturing, and creative play with very few “bells and whistles.” In my mind, 10 minutes spent together reading or pretending is far more valuable than any toy that can be purchased at the store. So, every week we’ll gather stuff from around the house and create our very own homemade educational fun!

I’ll be using this blog to share some of my experiences at WQLN, in the classroom, and in our community. And, I hope to hear from some of you too. There is nothing more rewarding for me than to hear from parents and teachers who are using RSL activities and books with their children.

For now, enjoy your day and I’ll see you around the neighborhood!