Toys for Sensory Activities to Help Calm Busy Minds

Taking care of our Mental Health means that we have to explore experiences, actions, relationships and surroundings that make us feel good and uplift our wellbeing.

Just like adults, some children need a little help to regulate their emotions. Engaging in calm play helps children relieve everyday anxiety. 

Some children may find it difficult to fully engage and play with other children when there is too much going on in their environment. Through sensory play, these children can learn to block out the noise which is not important and focus on the play setup in front of them. Our new sensory resources help all children enjoy the benefits of a calmer play experience, but are specifically designed for those children with special educational needs.

Here are some excellent sensory resources that can be used to create a calming play environment:

Sensory Stones

These large stones are designed to enable children to have sensory experiences by experimenting with the raised and indented shapes and patterns. Cast from a durable mix of resin and real stone, they can be used on their own or as part of a wider sensory experience incorporating messy play. Each stone in this set of eight measures 75mm and include four raised/bumpy designs (circles, dots, wavy lines, and a grid) and four indented/hollow designs (circles, lines, zigzags, and a spiral).

These stones provide an excellent opportunity for children to learn through stereognostic sense (judging shape and size through touch alone), and the visual sense (detecting similarities and differences using the eyes which also develops muscular sense). 

It enables children to experiment with shapes and patterns while also exploring how to match and find symmetries. 

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Sensory Worry Stones

These tactile stones have been designed to soothe and calm children, helping them to focus, concentrate and feel secure: the key elements of productive learning. 

By holding and/or rubbing a stone, a child’s sensory input is occupied, helping to relieve stress and anxiety, freeing their mind to focus on the task in front of them. Offering an appealing range of shapes, textures and natural colours, the set includes twelve stones: two each of six designs (heart, egg, grooved, knobbly, two-tone and hollowed).

These stones are the perfect companion for mindfulness activities where children can be completely focused on the stone and its shape, colour, texture, weight, etc. of which they are holding in their hand.

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Alphabet Pebbles & Wording Trays

 Take a hands-on approach to learning letters with our tactile Alphabet Pebbles. Specially cast from our unique stone and resin mix, they’ll appeal to children’s instinct to explore, investigate, sort and collect. They are durable enough to be used in sand, water and outdoors. Each pebble is engraved and painted with a letter, and will not fade over time. Pebbles measure between 30–45mm.

These natural alphabet pebbles also provide children with an outstanding sensorial experience. Children can hold the pebbles in their hands, trace the letter shape and manipulate them while constructing words. There are many extensions to this work including making up their own words and then writing them out.

They work exceptionally well with our Wording Trays. These simple yet beautiful wooden trays are designed to help children learn how to blend and segment letters to create three letter CVC words in a very tactile way. The shallow dips in each tray accommodate our Alphabet Pebbles well, but are also a good fit for other letter tiles and resources. Made from sustainably sourced beech wood, this natural product is available individually or as a set of six, making them ideal for small group use.

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• Alphabet Pebble
• Wordbuilding trays

Natural Shape Viewers

Our Natural Shape Viewers offers a wonderful extension to sensory play for when children are battling boredom.

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