Sensory Boxes

Sensory boxes can help improve tactile sensitivity!

The skin is the largest organ in the body packed with nerve fibers for keeping the brain in touch with the outside world.

Adults carry about 8 pounds and 20 square feet of skin. It is estimated that there are approximately 100 tactile/touch receptors in each finger!


Children explore the world through their senses. The sense of touch is the first sense to operate before a child is even born. The sense of touch is important for growth, development as well as survival.
The sense of touch enables an infant to turn their faces towards the nipple, to start bonding with their parents and to feel calmed by warm blankets while falling asleep. Poor tactile response can result in problems with body awareness, balance and graceful fluid movement.
In addition to brushing, massage and grooming pets, (real or stuffed) tactile senses can be strengthened by using Sensory Boxes. They are portable, easy to put together; the items you can use are inexpensive & variations are endless. A sensory box can be used in self-contained classrooms as a motivator for completing work or for appropriate behavior. It can be used in the home for the same reason for children with or without tactile or other development delays.


You will need:

• A clean plastic tub with a lid

• sand, rice, pasta, packing peanuts, paper shred or beans to fill plastic tub

• small items or toys to hide in the rice, sand etc. (small plastic animals, balls, race cars, small dolls, alphabet letters or numbers, small people, etc.)

First, be sure the plastic tub you are using is clean and dry. Fill tub about 2/3 full with pasta, rice, beans or sand. (We have used different kinds of pasta for our example.)

Place various toys or objects in the tub, hidden in the pasta. In the example to the right, there are sparkly bugs, frogs, lizards and snakes hidden in the pasta. (This photo was taken at a resource fair for the Dominics Dreams SPD Foundation.) As the children pulled out an animal, we did a yoga pose that went with the creature. There was also a gold coin hidden in the box. The child that 'found' that got to make up a pose. I remember the young man who found it made up his own "swan" pose.

Play with your child in the box by pushing hands deep into the box, scooping up pasta and letting it run out back into the box and by feeling for the hidden toys.

You can play counting games (how many bugs can you find?) or have the child sort (red bugs, green bugs, snakes, etc. or sort the different types of pasta or beans into cups.) Use your imagination and have fun!

I also have used leftover colored rice from my colored rice mosaics in the sensory boxes. This is my daughter's favorite "tune out to tune in" activity. She finds it very relaxing and has hidden a small ziploc bag of the "Rainbow Rice" away in her room for when she needs 'sensory time'. (My daughter is not on the spectrum, however I believe that all children have specific sensory needs, just as adults do! (More about rice mosaics in another post!)

*(Be careful of small objects being placed into ears, nose or swallowed. Please supervise young or impaired children at all times.)


* To learn more sensory & art activities go to:
http://smartkidsyoga.webs.com/artsensoryactivities.htm