Monthly Topic-Summer 2000
"Make Your Summer a, 'Sensory Summer' "
Introduction:
Sensory motor is an area of development that is often took for granted. We assume that as babies learn to master their bodies they will in turn use those skills to master the environment around them. However, all children benefit from having the priviledge of parents for more reasons than one. Parents have the magical ability to arrange and enhance the environment around children. They do this by buying appropriate toys and games, setting up playrooms, activities, and playdates. A child's sensory motor system is enriched by touch, movement and deep pressure input. Summer and summer oriented activities have great potential in satisfying these credentials to promote sensory motor development.
What is Sensory Motor Development?:
Sensory motor development is often referred to by learning theorists such as Erickson. This is one of the first stages a child goes through to perceive and organize sensory input. This area matures rapidly between the ages of birth through two years old. One could argue that this stage starts even earlier on in the womb, when a baby senses visual, touch and movement input. As you would imagine learning begins with objects that babies have the easiest access to. In the very early stages due to the lack of muscle control and coordination, babies learn primarily from their visual system, by watching objects. They also experience touch and movement input that is imposed on them by others or in some cases by devices such as bouncy chairs. As thier little bodies mature they begin a journey through which they perceive their own body parts and how they function. Once movement is mastered the child then uses their body to move around their environment. This opens a world of possiblities as the child's access to the toys and world around them increases significantly. As the child grows their skills continue to improve. They have better gross and fine motor skills. They are able to manage more and more complex tasks.
How to have a, "Sensory Summer":
Summer is an excellent opportunity to enrich already developing sensory motor skills. The nature of summer provides us with a variety of touch, movement and deep pressure activities.
Sand: This is a wonderful tactile medium with versatile sensory properties. Sand obviously provides great tactile or touch input. To get the most out of sand related activities, try not to limit children to simple dump and fill games. Add activities such as burying treasure, having children bury parts of themselves, digging holes with their hands and fingers rather than just with shovels, adding water to let them experience how the texture changes and how it feels on their hands and feet. Sand can also give good deep pressure as it is heavy. Encourage children to fill, carry and dump large pails of sand, dig deeply into tightly packed sand and firmly pat sand together to make castles and mounds.
Water: Water is all around us in pools, lakes, streams, oceans and backyard sprinklers. Swimming is a great activity for providing tactile, movement and deep pressure input. Encourage children to move about in the water, kick using kickboards and body boards, splash, use water squeezers or squirters and play dump and fill games with a variety of cups and pails. When using backyard sprinklers, encourage children to jump around in the water spray doing "tricks" or different dances or moves. The wet grass also provides good tactile input during this activity.
Sports: So many outdoor sports provide great movement and deep pressure input. Some good activities are bike riding, ball games, horseshoes, basketball, frisbee, soccer, rollerblading, trampoline jumping, running and climbing.
Conclusion:
Many of the above activities may already be part of your daily summer regieme. Others may be missing. The important thing is that children are outdoors doing these types of summer activities rather than staying inside playing video games and watching television. There is plenty of time on rainy days to focus on these types of activities. It is of the utmost importance to stimulate children from the moment that they enter the world. Promoting sensory motor skills early on provides a foundation for the development of later fine and gross motor skills, social skills, body awareness, attention/focus, and learning abilities. Make your summer a, "Sensory Summer". It will benefit your child for years to come.
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