3 Sensory Activities for Kids with Autism
If you’re raising a child with autism then you know how hard it is to keep them interested in activities that are safe and sensory-friendly. Spending quality time with your autistic child is important. It’s also important to incorporate educational and fun activities into their everyday schedules that promote growth, education, and special bonding.
Below, I’ve put together a fun list of activities for you to experience with your autistic child that is fun and sensory-friendly. Enjoy!
3 Sensory Activities for Kids with Autism
Create a Sensory Collage – Create a tactile collage offering your autistic child an interesting and sensory pleasing activity that is both fun and safe. Add aluminum foil both flat and wrinkled up, a feather, a line of small jewelry beads, cotton balls, rice, toothpicks, a plastic comb, and a few pieces of fabric squares such as linen, silk, denim, and leather. Glue each item on a poster board and name each one with a marker. This is a wonderful opportunity for some one-on-one educational time with your child allowing him or her to touch and feel different household items and possibly learn new vocabulary at the same time.
Create a Matching Game – Place 5 – 10 physical items on one side of the room (in a horizontal line) and sit with your child on the other, facing the lined-up items. As you sit with your child, show him/her flashcards with the name of each item before you. Teach your child the name of the item and ask your child to go get that item and bring it to you. Be sure to give lots of cheers, hugs, and verbal rewards for each accurate retrieval.
Shaving Cream Art – Squirt shaving cream on a large cookie sheet and allow your child to get messy! Give them the opportunity to smear the shaving cream, draw shapes in the shaving cream (with prompts) and squeeze the shaving cream in their hands. This is a ton of fun! Please watch your child closely with this activity though to make sure the shaving cream doesn’t end up in his/her mouth.
Do you have sensory-friendly activities you’d like to share with our readers? Please leave them in the comments below!
Photo – Vanessa Loring
