Do-it-yourself toys for sensory development

Inexpensive toys and exercise equipment for sensory development of the younger group

Children in the younger group learn primary colors, identify the simplest shapes of objects and train their hearing system, expanding their experience in terms of sensations. Didactic fun should not be complex and time-consuming, and the attributes and simulators need to be bright and interesting, but simple:

Fun with buttons, beads, beans. Don't have a habit of hoarding buttons? You will have to buy approximately 10 pieces of different sizes of primary colors. We play with loose buttons in this way: we move them from box to box, lay out a path, a flower, other shapes, while learning colors and distinguishing between the concepts of “one - many”.

The simplest sensory mat: just sew buttons onto thick fabric. Children love to sort through these circles.

We make a simulator based on the sensory mat: we make some parts with loops and put them on the buttons on the mat. Or we go further: we create a fabric panel depicting trees, for example. There are buttons on the trees, and our fruits are sewn separately with a loop. So we hang the fruits on the trees.

Just a charming idea for sensory development: we make a pig out of a plastic bottle, covering it with fabric or decorating it. We put “food” into the mouth-neck - buttons, beads, beans, peas, etc.

Sensory bags: we sew small bags and sew different materials into them - cereals of different sizes, legumes, rustling fabrics. To develop the sense of smell, we fill the bags with herbs, coffee, etc. At the same time, several exhibits need to be made with the same filling so that the child can find them and distinguish them from others.
Didactic cubes: children of this age can stack them one on top of the other in 2-3-4 formations, so the design on the cubes should form a single pattern so that the child uses thinking. Or, to teach color, make blocks of primary colors and offer different ways to play. Cubes made from different materials are good: knitted from threads, sewn from fabric, made from smooth and textured cardboard.
Trainers - laces, fasteners, latches, snakes, clothespins, etc. How to make them can be found on the Internet.
Maracas - we make them from plastic bottles and fill them with bulk materials - we develop our hearing.

Varieties of didactic fun

It is worth noting that there is no clear classification of educational fun, but they can be divided according to different criteria.

So, according to the tasks that can be solved through didactic fun, the following are distinguished:

Educational – used for better assimilation and consolidation of acquired knowledge and skills;
Combinatorial – necessary for developing in children the ability to find the right solution to a task;
Analytical – expand the boundaries of consciousness and promote the ability to think outside the box, analyze and see patterns;
Associative - develop the ability to guess, understand hints, guess what is being discussed based on given information about the subject;
Contextual - sharpen the understanding of complex semantic connections between verbal forms, develop the ability to express one’s thoughts, etc.

In principle, any didactic game carries many of the above characteristics and is suitable not only for performing one task, for example, for sensory development, but at the same time educates the child, develops important psychological qualities for life, stimulates cognitive activity, speech, and imagination.

Therefore, such a method of training and development as a didactic game is indispensable in organized educational activities in preschool educational institutions.

To develop sensory sensitivity, the following types of games are usually played:

Fun with objects - toys and their substitutes, natural materials, improvised objects (buttons, beads), food (cereals, nuts), some technical devices, etc.;
Tabletop-printed - dominoes, checkers, lotto, various handouts.

Verbal games for sensory development are used mainly in the form of finger games in poems and songs.

By the way, in order to better understand the essence and methods of sensory development, I advise you to take advantage of a special offer from UchMag: top up your personal account in the store and get the opportunity to take part in the offline webinar “Raising a child’s sensory culture” for free. What is the foundation of a child’s mental development?”

Also an excellent guide: “Game training using sensory modules. Senior and preparatory group" - here are trainings on psychological support for the emotional development of preschoolers.

And for parents of future first-graders, the educational book “Sensory Development” from the “Soon to School” series will be a good help.

We are setting up the production of toys for the middle group

In the middle group we continue to develop sensitivity, we begin to teach counting, a wider range of colors, sounds, and different geometric shapes. You can read more about this in the manual “Sensory development of children 4-5 years old. Color. Form. Size. Didactic games and exercises for organizing joint activities of the teacher and children of middle preschool age: 16 didactic cards.”

We can do a lot with our own hands for this age:

For counting games, it is appropriate to use clothespins. Glue a circle of paper with a number (from 1-9) onto a clothespin. Next, we prepare different types of didactic material: it is more convenient to use circles with a radius division into sectors, in which different objects are drawn, numbering from 1 to 9. You can do this in the form of a roulette, when a certain sector falls out randomly.

We counted the number of items in the sector, found a clothespin with the corresponding number and attached it to the sector.

Caps from plastic bottles can be used with great success: if you pre-drill or pierce a hole in the center with a hot knitting needle, you will get a construction set. By stringing the caps onto string in a certain way, you can create not only beads, but also figures.

If you work hard, you will get a simulator for developing fingers: take a box, make holes in the lid the size of the neck of the cut bottles. We insert the blank into the holes on the back of the lid and close the box lid. The child will practice his fingers by screwing and unscrewing the caps. You can complicate the task by coming up with something based on color, counting, etc.

The lids can also be used as lotto chips, checkers, or filled with homemade maracas, or whatever.

Touch board: we nail buttons with plastic heads onto a wooden board. Using rubber bands, we create different patterns, attaching them to buttons.
A plastic sink grate makes a good frame for weaving ribbons: it is divided into square cells, making it convenient to do simple weaving.

Just for this age, it’s time to make a simulator for tying shoelaces: we cut out something like a shoe from thick cardboard or plywood and make a hole for lacing.

Card index of didactic games on sensory education for young children 2-3 years old

Didactic material for sensory education - systematized sets of objects or pictures that give children the opportunity to practice identifying certain characteristics of objects, comparing some objects with others, grouping objects, and solving problems on their spatial arrangement. As cognitive abilities develop, the material becomes more complex.

Learning takes place in a playful way so that preschoolers remain highly motivated to study.

Requirements for educational games:

safety;
visibility;
naturalness of materials;
brightness and naturalness of colors;
availability;
age appropriate.

How to cope with the development of sensitivity in 5-6 year old children?

The older group requires more complex sensory activities, but the attributes can still be made independently. By the way, I advise you to read: “Sensory development of children 5-6 years old. Color. Form. Size. Didactic games and exercises for organizing joint activities between the teacher and older children: 24 didactic cards.”

And for classes with children with vision problems, I recommend this manual: “Sensory development of preschoolers with visual impairments in special and inclusive education. Thematic individual lessons and games.”

So, let’s make the attributes for classes:

Massage track - in principle, this thing is suitable for any age without restrictions. The work is long, but simple: we sew something like pillows connected to each other into a track. We sew different fillings into each pillow, like the sensory bags that I described above. It is very useful to lie down, crawl, and walk along such a path.
It's time to do the math: take a photo frame, attach strings in any available way, and string the same bottle caps, beads, and curtain rings onto them. You can adapt a compact clothes dryer for abacus using abacus clothespins.

I really liked the idea of a sensory labyrinth, it would look great in a kindergarten sensory room (if you have one). The point is this: take frames that can stand stably, about 5-6 of them, and attach various obstacles for movement to the top crossbar of each: balloons with sand, strips of rubber, fabrics, Christmas tree “rain”...

Like in a car wash. By the way, you can sign so that the child searches and climbs through the frames one by one: water, cleaning, drying, etc. This is a great active sensory play!

To study numeracy and literacy, you can use an old computer keyboard. Cover unnecessary distracting buttons with pieces of paper. See how quickly our computer kids learn letters and numbers.
Touch boards: cut a board out of plywood or cardboard and glue plain felt on top. We prepare various figures, numbers, letters, houses, trees, cars, and glue Velcro onto the back side. Children create pictures, solve math problems, etc. right on the board.

Preparatory group and sensory fun

Children of this age are actively preparing for school; accordingly, we focus on literacy and numeracy, but do not forget about comprehensive ontogenesis (development) through play. By the way, I can recommend the excellent manual “Game training using sensory modules. Senior and preparatory groups": a non-standard approach is used here to implement educational tasks on sensory development.

To understand what toys to make for the sensory senses of children of this age, you need to understand these tasks, and they are: continue to enrich the experience of children, expanding the boundaries of auditory, visual, and tactile perception. Introduce a wide range of colors, sounds, smells, textures. Firmly consolidate knowledge about sensory standards.

As for do-it-yourself sensory toys, at 6-7 years old it is quite possible to continue using the above-mentioned toys, but set more complex tasks for them.

By the way, bottle caps can be used as a massage pool: we fill the box with the caps, making sure that they lie with the flat part up, and let the child stomp in place, massaging the feet.

In general, sensory boxes can be made in an economical way, like with lids, and in a “rich” way: we fill the container with selected pebbles or glass balls for floristry, and we get a whole dry pool. Or we mix different cereals: rice, millet, balls for sprinkling confectionery and we get an excellent relaxation simulator.

I also really liked the idea of a glass easel: it’s something like a frame with glass on stable legs. You can draw on glass on both sides and wash off the drawings.

There are different types of winder toys, they are a toy on a string, and the thread is tied to a stick or pencil; you need to wind the thread around the stick, bringing the toy, a mouse, for example, closer to you. In this kind of fun, two participants can compete in speed. It's very easy to make them, I think you can guess how.

To develop visual memory, everything is generally simple: cut out pictures from magazines or draw them, show them to the child, hide them, and he remembers what was depicted. Or also for developing the perception of syllables - it costs nothing to write the syllables on cards and let the children make up words or select pictures depicting objects for a given syllable.

Why you need to develop fine motor skills

Many people know about the need to develop children's fine motor skills from an early age. However, not everyone understands why this is needed and what such activities are.

Fine motor skills are the ability to perform precise movements with the hands and fingers. It is coordinated by the work of the nervous, muscular, skeletal and visual systems. Its development begins in the first months of a child’s life with looking at his own fingers and hands. Then the baby gradually learns to master them by picking up toys. Motor skills have a positive effect on manual dexterity, the formation of a student’s future handwriting, and reaction speed.

It has been established that the level of development of a child’s speech directly depends on the degree of formation of finger movements. In the human brain, the centers responsible for speech and motor skills are located nearby. Thus, when one area is stimulated, the other is also activated.

Sensory fun for all ages

There are also such fun things for the preparatory period - speech serpentine, which you can also do yourself. We draw a serpentine road on paper, and removable elements such as cards and pictures are attached along the sides of each turn. The child must, following the serpentine, name syllables, letters, and images. You can move in any way you like: paving the way with buttons, pebbles, walking with your fingers, moving a car.

Also, “for a snack,” I suggest making this didactic sensory fun from matchboxes: on top of the box we paste an image of an animal, a bird that makes recognizable sounds: meow, woof, moo, coo-ka-re-ku, co-co-co, coo -ku, etc. On the inside of the box at the bottom, we write these sounds in readable letters. The child must choose the right sound for the picture. If you can’t read yet, read it yourself, and the child picks it up by ear.

I think you have enough ideas for implementation today. If you have any additions, please share them, as well as links to my articles. In addition, I invite new subscribers to our company.

Sincerely, Tatyana Sukhikh! Till tomorrow!

Do-it-yourself toys for sensory development or how to make something out of nothing