7: Sensory Experiences
- Page ID
- 274097
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Sensory tables are used in classrooms and on playgrounds where teachers value this type of play. You will notice that children at the sensory table enjoy filling cups, funnels, and strainers of various sizes and can learn a basic form of physics while grappling with the reactions they encounter. Smart teachers enhance this play by offering scoops of different materials (metal kitchen spoons, cupcake tins, and disposable plastic containers with punched holes that create the surprise of rain or fluid loss when used).
Sensory Experiences
Sensory experiences are fun for sure, but one of the more compelling reasons for providing them is to foster the ability to receive sensory information from one’s surroundings and relate it to what one already knows. For example, I know that sand is moldable when wet, or that a coarse piece of sandpaper is less pleasant to touch than a furry cat. These are aesthetic experiences—moments when we respond to what something looks, feels, or sounds like in a way that brings up both thoughts and feelings. (Aesthetic means having to do with beauty, sensory qualities, or how something makes us feel through the senses.) These are basic perceptual bits of knowledge, and perception grows more complex as children grow and develop. There are at least 10 human senses that we know to nurture in our work with young children, they are:
"Five Senses" by Nicki Dugan Pogue is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
1. Visual – Looking/seeing
This involves a thorough visual exploration rather than a passing glance or quick look. Children learn to use their eyes by purposefully tracking movement, noticing differences, and visually investigating their environment. Visual perception and discrimination, such as being able to distinguish between similar letters or shapes, are foundational skills for learning to read and write.
2. Auditory – Hearing /listening
This sense involves two very different processes: casual hearing and focused, active listening. Children who can hear do not always listen. From a young age, they’re bombarded with auditory input and quickly learn to tune out what’s not immediately relevant. While casual hearing is appropriate much of the time, moments such as listening to music, engaging with a read-aloud, or following a teacher’s instructions require focused, active listening. A key teaching goal is to help children know when and how to shift from passive hearing to active listening.
3. Tactile – Feeling/touch
Touch may work closely alongside the visual sense. Activities that involve handling objects, exploring textures, and feeling differences in shape, weight, or temperature are all categorized as tactile. Through tactile play, children build body awareness, safety awareness, and emotional regulation.
4. Olfactory – Smell
While animals rely heavily on their sense of smell, people tend to underuse it, yet young children often respond more sensitively to smells than adults do. For example, a child may refuse to try a food solely based on its smell, even if it looks appealing. This sensitivity makes smell an important consideration in early learning environments.
5. Gustatory – Taste
Taste experiences help children navigate the world, often in connection with culture, emotion, and safety (e.g., tasting something bitter or sour and learning what’s edible). Exploring taste encourages curiosity and often brings social interaction—sharing snacks, describing flavors, or reacting to new foods.
To this, Dr. Maria Montessori (1967) added five more refined sensory capacities—senses that extend beyond the five and help children make even more nuanced discoveries:
6. Chromatic – A broader sense of vision
This refers to the ability to recognize, match, and discriminate among colors, noticing subtle differences in hue, brightness, and saturation. Experiences such as using a light table, arranging color gradients, or observing how sunlight affects color perception help children sharpen this sense.
7. Thermic – The perception of temperature
Children explore how things feel to the touch: hot, cold, warm, tepid, or chilled. This is crucial for comfort, safety, and physical awareness. Think about the learning involved in deciding whether water is too hot or if it’s safe to touch a metal object on a sunny day.
8. Stereognostic – Tactile-muscular recognition of objects
This sense allows a child to recognize and identify objects without seeing them, using only their hands and muscular feedback. For example, reaching into a mystery bag and pulling out a familiar object like a spoon or pinecone builds both confidence and sensory memory.
9. Baric – Perception of weight
Children develop this sense as they compare heavy and light objects and begin to detect gradations in weight. Carrying, lifting, or balancing items helps children build not only muscle strength but also an internal sense of mass and density.
10. Kinesthetic – Whole-body, sensorimotor awareness
This is the awareness of movement and muscle control. It includes balance, coordination, posture, and knowing where one’s body is in space. Running, dancing, climbing, and crawling all support the development of this vital sensory system.
All ten of these senses are honed through hands-on, open-ended sensory exploration…so yes, it’s time to get messy! Teachers may hesitate to offer sensory-rich play due to fear of mess or uncertainty about its purpose. Still, these experiences are essential to how young children organize knowledge, regulate their emotions, build language, and make sense of the world around them. Let’s honor and support sensory play… for growth in all areas!
Sensing, perceiving, thinking, and developing concepts are all connected. It’s much easier for a child to form a concept when they have experienced it firsthand through their senses. The image below shows how this process works:
Image created by Donna King using OpenAI's ChatGPT (July 2026).
The Affective-Cognitive Pathway to Concept Development
Each sense brings in different information. As children look, listen, touch, smell, and taste, they are reacting and thinking while enjoying the process. Below is a sample of how some sensory experiences in the classroom can foster feelings and cognitive actions and develop an understanding of concepts. The chart is to be used fluidly; feelings and cognitive actions are interchangeable, and concepts developed are many. While children are playing or exploring with sensory materials, they engage in an aesthetic experience in which thinking, feeling, and perception work together. Cognitive understanding and conceptual learning emerge naturally from their affective responses to the experience. Those emotional responses are often what draw children back to explore again and again. This is not simply messy play for the sake of making a mess. It is meaningful sensory play that engages the whole child. Their senses, emotions, and thinking processes are all actively involved, creating rich opportunities for learning and brain development.
In other words, children are thinking and feeling at the same time. Aesthetic experiences weave together cognition and emotion. Every child responds differently to beauty, novelty, and sensory experiences. If a group of children sees a kitten (or, for adults, someone they have a crush on), each person will have a unique emotional reaction. Those individual responses are part of the rich relationship between how we perceive the world, what we think about it, and how we feel about it. It is this integration of perception, emotion, and cognition that helps children construct meaningful concepts about the world around them.
Key Definitions
Affective Response: The emotional reaction a child experiences and expresses while engaging with people, materials, or events. An affective response may be seen in facial expressions, body language, vocalizations, enthusiasm, curiosity, surprise, frustration, or delight.
Cognitive Understanding: The knowledge or understanding that develops through thinking, questioning, remembering, comparing, and making sense of experiences. During sensory play, children may discover cause-and-effect relationships, learn new vocabulary, recognize patterns, solve problems, or form new concepts.
(Adapted from Schirrmacher, 2018).
Try This! Print a copy of the chart above for teachers and other adults in the classroom as a quick reference for ideas to pursue while children are exploring with sensory substances. After looking at the chart, a teacher. might say, "Savita, your rock sank quickly to the bottom. Let's compare that to the feather, then we can analyze why that happened and write down our ideas in our concept book"
Sensory Experiences and Recipes
Infants/Toddlers, preschoolers and school-age children ... adapted from Schirrmacher)
Final Reflection
As teachers, it can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing on what children can recite, label, or demonstrate on a worksheet. Sensory experiences remind us that true learning begins much earlier, in the body. Before children can explain a concept, they often need to feel it, hear it, see it, move through it, and compare it with something they already know. A child pouring water between containers, noticing that wet sand holds its shape, or identifying an object hidden in a mystery bag is building the foundation for later reasoning, language, and problem-solving. What may look like “just play” is often a child organizing the world through the senses. Sensory exploration helps children develop perception, attention, self-regulation, and confidence. It also invites wonder. Children naturally ask questions, test ideas, and revise their thinking when materials respond in surprising ways.
Your role is not simply to provide sensory activities, but to create environments where meaningful sensory exploration can happen safely and respectfully. Offer time, space, and open-ended materials. Observe carefully. Listen to the language children use. Notice what captures their attention and what they are trying to understand. When we honor sensory play, we honor the way young children learn best: through active engagement with the world around them. The goal is not a perfectly clean classroom. The goal is a classroom where children are curious, capable, and deeply involved in making sense of their experiences. And, that's a classroom that will never be forgotten!
With the exception of specific baking ingredients used in homemade playdough or other sensory bases, please refrain from using food items or plastic-based materials in the classroom. Using food as a play material can unintentionally send the message that food is disposable, which can be especially troubling or even offensive for children who experience food insecurity. We want to model respect for food as a vital and shared resource. Similarly, plastic items—such as manufactured beads or trinkets—not only pose safety risks (children have been known to place them in ears or noses) but also contribute to environmental harm due to their overuse and non-biodegradable nature. Whenever possible, lean toward natural, sustainable, and abundant materials that invite rich sensory exploration while aligning with values of safety, respect, and environmental care.