When we become parents, we start teaching our babies through reading, talking, and playing. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I see every day how powerful sensory play can be for children of all ages. It often happens naturally during open-ended play, but many parents are not always sure what sensory play looks like or why it matters.
Sensory play helps children make sense of their world by engaging their senses and supporting skills such as fine and gross motor development, language, problem-solving, and emotional regulation. Some types of sensory play can even help calm and organize a child who is feeling overwhelmed.
If you have ever wondered how to support your child’s development through sensory play, this guide will help. Below are therapist-recommended sensory toys for babies, toddlers, and older kids, along with how each one supports essential developmental skills.
What Is Sensory Play?
At its most basic form, sensory play is a type of play that engages your child’s senses. Most people think we have five senses: sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch. But additional senses are essential for your child’s understanding of the world.
The vestibular system helps us understand movement, acceleration, and our head position. This system helps us know when a car is slowing down or accelerating, recognize whether an elevator is going up or down, and helps our sense of balance.
The proprioceptive system helps us understand our relative body position and the forces acting on our body. This system is responsible for helping us apply the right amount of pressure when writing with a pencil vs. a crayon, and proprioceptive input helps us touch our finger to our nose with our eyes closed.1
Sensory Toys for Babies
These toys support early development through touch, sound, vision, and simple cause and effect.
1. Water Mat
Tummy time is essential for developing head and neck control, shoulder stability, and core strength. These impact a baby’s ability to roll over and eventually start crawling. When babies are very young, their vision is still developing, so having toys in close view is essential. This water mat is an excellent, mess-free sensory activity that will keep your baby engaged on the floor for longer periods, allowing for more tummy time and exploring. When it’s not filled, it’s nice and compact for storage or travel.
Related: Baby Vision Development by Age: Newborn to Infant
2. Wrist and Sock Rattles
When babies are young, they cannot grasp toys and shake them. These toys are perfect for those early days. The soft wristbands can be wrapped around a baby’s wrist, and the socks are perfect for tiny feet. Your baby will love to shake their arms and legs to make the rattles shake. This is one of the earliest activities for babies to learn cause and effect. It’s also beneficial for body awareness and helping your baby understand their body parts.
Related: When Do Babies Start Grabbing Things?
3. Spinning Stacking Rings
Stacking rings are a classic toy, and I’ve always loved this “spin” on the original concept. This stacker features six double-sided gears that spin onto the pole as they drop. At this age, babies are beginning to grasp the concept of cause and effect and developing their fine motor skills. This toy is excellent for both areas, as well as visual motor coordination. Initially, you will need to assist your baby in placing the gears onto the pole, but eventually, your baby will learn to do it independently and play with it repeatedly!
4. Chew Cube
Babies love exploring toys with their mouths. Whether they’re teething or playing, I can say with some certainty that babies will put toys in their mouths, so we must provide them with safe options for play. This toy is a modern take on a classic teether. It was created by a mom and is made of 100% food-grade silicone. Its flexible, textured edges will soothe babies’ sore teething gums, and the size and shape allow your baby’s hands to grip easily.
5. Stacking Soft Blocks
Blocks are an excellent toy for any child. This four-block set is perfect for little hands to discover and explore. Each features multi-textured fabric for tactile stimulation and vibrant colors your baby will love. They also feature rattle sounds to stimulate a baby’s sense of sound.
6. Textured Ball Set
These colorful, textured balls feature six colors and textures that stimulate your baby’s visual and auditory senses while developing their hand-eye coordination. They also squeak when the baby squeezes them for added cause-and-effect learning.
7. Sensory Shaker Toy
This rattle will engage several of your baby’s senses. The jellyfish responds to your baby’s movements and rewards their curiosity with a color-changing light show and classical melodies. The textured rope “tentacles” are great for engaging a baby’s tactile awareness.
Related: Curious Babies Become Better Learners, Study Shows
8. Baby Paper
This is, hands down, one of our favorite sensory toys for babies. The outer layer is a strong, black-and-white contrast fabric, perfect for a baby’s vision. Inside is paper that makes a crinkly sound when a baby plays with it, and they’ll love it! It is non-toxic and compact, making it easy to travel with; simply stuff it in your diaper bag for on-the-go use. Additionally, it’s machine-washable, so your baby can play with it again and again.
9. Peek-a-Boo Sensory Fish
This fish is such a cute toy. Baby will love lifting the scales to reveal the pictures underneath. There are different colors, textures, and even some crinkly paper that your baby will love playing with.
10. Dimpl Wobbl
This sensory toy for babies is such a joy to watch. It has a bumpy, sensory texture that your baby will love feeling, and the button at the top is irresistible to push and pop. But the best part is your baby can use it as a teether, and guess what happens when they throw or drop it? It lands upright every time! The weighted bottom allows it to wobble and tilt, but it’ll always land on its feet.
Sensory Toys for Toddlers
Toddler sensory toys encourage exploration, movement, language, and hands-on experimentation.
1. Play-Doh
Play-Doh has been around for many years and remains a very popular toy, and for good reason. The texture is excellent for encouraging hands-on, open-ended learning. Your child will love to squish and mold the Play-Doh into different forms and shapes. You can even make homemade playdough. And bonus — it’s a great fine motor activity.
2. Edushape Sensory Balls
The bumpy texture on this ball makes it easy for little hands to grasp and pick up, and offers great tactile input for their sense of touch. Tossing and catching a ball is a great gross motor activity that benefits a child’s hand-eye coordination. Playing the same game with a textured ball introduces more sensory components. There are many colors, and some even glow in the dark.
Related: Strategies to Help Your Child Play Independently
3. Crayola Touch Lights
I love this mess-free portable finger-painting board. It provides great sensory feedback without the mess, making it perfect for on-the-go use. It’s also great for kids who are maybe a bit averse to messy hands. The music and lights make for a wonderful multi-sensory experience for your little one.
4. Pop Tubes
We love the tactile and auditory stimulation these provide, and they also incorporate fine motor skill development, bilateral coordination, and cause-and-effect learning. Your kids will love the fun crinkly sound they make when you push them together and pull them apart.
5. Montessori Pull Toy
This is a recent find of mine, and our baby can’t get enough of it. This Montessori toy is another great sensory toy for on-the-go and will hold your little one’s attention for a while. It features different colors and textures, which makes for a great sensory experience, but I also love that it encourages excellent bilateral coordination and fine motor play.
Related: Best Montessori Toys for Babies and Toddlers
6. Trampoline
Jumping is a great sensory experience that can provide a child with deep proprioceptive input. This sensory input helps our children develop body awareness skills and improve motor coordination. It also helps them get some of their wiggles and extra energy out.
7. Scooter Boards
These are great for providing vestibular input while also building core strength and coordination. The handles keep fingers safe while providing steering and control of the board. One of my favorite ways to use this sensory toy for toddlers is by making a “track” on the floor using painter’s tape and having your child drive along the track using the scooter board. Big kids love this sensory toy too!
8. Sensory Water Beads Bean Bags
Water beads are a great sensory toy and tool for toddlers, and I love these because they are contained and safe, yet still provide a fun sensory experience for your little one. These feature letters paired with flashcards, so you can start teaching your baby letters and basic words.
9. Activity Cube
Activity cubes offer a great way to provide multi-sensory experiences that support gross motor development. Most activity cubes provide a stable base for babies to begin pulling up to stand. They also allow your little one to begin engaging in independent play.
Encouraging independent play will be very useful as your baby grows because, as parents, we can’t entertain a baby every second of every day. Toys like this are ideal since they’re safe and engaging. All the little peek-a-boo doors and manipulatives are wonderful. There’s so much for your baby to explore, so they will surely be entertained for a good chunk of time.
10. Food
Yes, food. Food is a great sensory activity for kids. Some of my favorites are foods like Jell-O, yogurt, uncooked rice, and cooked spaghetti noodles. You can put any of those foods in a large baking dish or tray, place various toys inside, and let your toddler play until their heart’s content.
I always like using food dye in the yogurt and allowing our children to use paintbrushes to swirl the colors around for fun color mixing. You can also dye rice or spaghetti noodles.
Using food is a great way to introduce open-ended sensory play, as it provides a safe learning experience (provided you’re not using anything that poses a choking hazard or contains allergens to which your child is sensitive). And honestly, with toddlers, taste-safe is a big win!
Related: Why You Should Let Your Baby Make a Mess at Mealtime
Sensory Toys for Kids
Older children benefit from sensory tools that build coordination, body awareness, and emotional regulation.
1. Kinetic Sand
The texture of this sand is somewhere between sand and Play-Doh, and kids LOVE it! They can mold it into all kinds of shapes and figures. I also like pouring it into a tray and having them use their finger for writing letters and numbers. Tactile learning can help kids retain proper letter and number formation more than just tracing or copying with a pencil or crayon.
2. Foam Sensory Paint
Arts and crafts time is a great way to work on fine motor skills and bilateral coordination, and I love introducing a sensory component to it with something like foam paint. You can have your kids finger paint in the foam, but the texture is airier than standard finger paint, so it’s an entirely different sensory experience.
3. Shaving Cream
Shaving cream is another great texture that your kids might love. An easy way to have them play with shaving cream is in the bath or shower. We call these “shaving cream baths,” and our kids love them. They can spray the shaving cream all over the walls, use their fingers to write or draw in it, and then spread it around to “erase” their drawings and start over again. And when they’re finished, you can rinse it off the walls and give the kids a bath for easy clean-up.
4. Swing
Swings provide excellent vestibular input for kids, which helps them better understand movement and their head position in space. Take your kids to the park for playtime on the swings, or put up a swing in your backyard. Swings that move in a forward/backward motion are great, but also consider swings that can turn and provide rotary movement for your kids.
5. Sensory Activity Table
A variety of sensory tables are available for kids, offering endless possibilities. I love using them as a mini sandbox or water table, or you could even use them as a shaving cream bin. They are available at various prices, with some options featuring a drain for easy clean-up.
6. Wikki Stix
Kids can use these wax sticks to create all kinds of creations. They can mold them together to make a sculpture or use them to form letters and numbers. They can stick them onto smooth surfaces without glue, making them a great mess-free play option. I love the tactile input these provide and the fine motor coordination used to mold them together.
7. Balance Beam
A balance beam is an excellent tool for developing dynamic balance and core strength. They also help your child develop body awareness (understanding their body’s position in space). I love creating obstacle courses with a balance beam, cushions to climb over, and a crash pad (or pillows) to jump into.
8. Teeter Popper
Balance boards are excellent for developing core strength, stability, leg strength, balance, coordination, and gross motor skills. But the Teeter Popper also has small suction cups on the bottom, so whether they’re sitting or standing on the balance board, they are rewarded with popping sounds as they move. This one is a blast!
9. Water Rings Game
These games will keep your child occupied while helping them develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. The way the rings float around in the water also provides calming visual input. These are great alternatives to screen time and video games.
10. Sensory Fidget Tubes
I love these calm-down tubes for times when kids are feeling angry or upset. They provide visual cues to help calm their bodies and teach kids how to regulate their emotions.
Related: 75 Calming Strategies for Kids
11. Sensory Bubble Blower
This Innobaby sensory bubble blower can aid in your little one’s development, as they practice blowing and visually tracking the floating bubbles. It’s designed to prevent dripping and backflow into your child’s mouth. We also like that it’s mess-free, non-sticky, and perfect for both indoor and outdoor play!
There are so many meaningful ways to bring sensory play into your child’s day, and each one supports their development in a natural, playful way. These toys are wonderful tools for building motor skills, language, confidence, and emotional regulation.
Whether you choose simple household items or dedicated sensory toys, the goal is the same: hands-on exploration that helps your child understand their world. They think they are just playing, but you are helping them grow in incredible ways. Happy playing!
