The Benefits of Sensory & Messy Play for Child Development

What is Sensory Play?

Before we start to talk about the benefits of Sensory Play, here is a simple explanation of what it is. 

Sensory Play is an activity that helps to stimulate the children’s senses of touch, hearing, taste, sight and smell. It is the perfect opportunity for children to explore all five of their senses and use them to explore the world around them.

The sensory market has become extremely important for Zimpli Kids and really has opened up a new audience for us. Parents are now starting to introduce sensory play to their children from a really early age, even as young as 12 months – as it has been proven to help with child development.

Due to the unique goo like texture, bright colours and sweet scents of Zimpli Kids best selling products Gelli Baff and Slime Baff, it has been used in multi-sensory and messy play all over the world. This has encouraged us to delve into the world of sensory play, to learn how these activities (and our products) benefit your little ones.  
 
Benefits of Sensory Play

Photo Credit @ilovemaiaandmarga

​Social & Emotional Development

Through sensory or messy play activities children learn to
​co-operate and it provides them with the opportunity to work together as a team. Gathering round a sensory table gives them opportunity to express themselves and to feel good about their decision-making skills.

​Cognitive Development

Sensory play is fantastic for cognitive development, to allow children to explore and figure new things they might never have experienced before. Whether it’s changing the colour of water, magically transforming water into goo or slime or making the water crackle and pop! This all helps children see and understand that if you add ‘this’ to ‘that’ you can create something new and unique.

Creative Development

Using creative thinking skills and expressing creativity are important self-esteem builders and can be developed through sensory play activities. Gelli and slime provide the perfect base for your child’s imagination to run wild and develop their creativity. Why not give them a go…
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• Add Dino figures into green Slime Play to create a sensory swamp.
• Have a go at Gelli Modelling and get creative; building shapes, characters or even Gelli sandcastles!    
• Try picking up the Slime Play with Sieves and colanders to create a slimy waterfall!
• Use our SnoPlay and some artic animals to create a snowy, artic adventure
• Click here to view more sensory playtime ideas

      “This Slime Baff must be the most popular sensory play invitation we’ve had ALL year! I set up an ocean themed tuff tray with the slime, sand and shells which has encouraged lots of mixing and
exploring the changing of textures. Half of one packet made 3 full tanks, so it’s definitely a fab investment”

Physical Development

Sensory play is really important for developing children’s physical skills as most activities require multiple muscles to work together. Especially with our products, children reinforce and practice their small motor skills while pouring water, measuring powder, stirring and manipulating the goo or slime. They learn to control and give their bodies directions to accomplish tasks as they explore the new, unique texture.

       “This was actually the first time we had explored Gelli and Little was amazed, diving her hands straight in to explore! Little did lots of scooping and pouring, filling, used her imagination to bake a cake and make a smoothie and had lots of fun as the cups slipped and slid everywhere!”

​Should you start integrating sensory play into your child’s everyday life? 

Of course! Sensory, Messy, tactile play are popular phrases at the moment and it will only increase as more research highlights the importance further.  
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Putting some time aside for your child to develop their senses is important and can be made simple with Zimpli Kids products. Just add water to our Gelli, Slime or SnoPlay and you have yourself a unique sensory activity -  that keeps kids quiet for hours!