Easy Home-based Sensory Activities for ASD Kids

Children on the autism spectrum often face issues in coping with everyday sensory stimuli. Things like brushing hair, loud noises, and bright lights affect them every day. This can be overwhelming and frustrating for the child.
Home-based sensory activities are a fun and easy way to stimulate the child’s senses and help him/her with sensory processing issues. Research has shown that home-based sensory activities are not only feasible but also provide reliable support for any ongoing therapies or treatments.
Let’s take a look at some fun sensory activities that you can easily do with your child at home! –

1. Sensory Activity Collage

This is an amazing activity to introduce your child to various textures on a small scale. Materials of different textures like, cotton balls, aluminum foil, velvet paper, sand paper, etc. can be used. Glue these materials together to form an awesome and creative picture! This activity is helpful for familiarizing the child with new textures previously unknown to them.

2. Lava Lamp Bags

These are great for engaging your child’s visual skills. Lava lamp bags are quite easy to make. Take a vacuum sealed bag and fill a quarter of it with baby oil. Then, choose a food color of your kid’s choice and add in a few drops. At the end, add a few drops of water to the bag. Your child can manipulate and play with the mesmerizing droplets by shaking or touching the bag!

3. Ice painting

This is a fun and colorful activity that your child will surely enjoy! All you need are ice cubes, water-based paints, and some lolly sticks. Start by adding some thick paint into ice tray compartments and mix it with a little water. Use different colors for every container. Remember to use bright colors! Put your lolly sticks inside the containers and leave them to freeze overnight. Now lay out some papers and let your child explore the magic of painting with ice! Your child will enjoy the swirling and the melting of the ice as it glides over the paper. This activity could also be a great medium for teaching children the science behind the changing state of water and how different colors mix together to form new colors.

4. Rice Race

This is a great activity that engages the child’s fine motor skills, attention, and concentration. All you need is some uncooked rice, bowls, food coloring, and a pair of plastic tweezers. Dye the rice with bright, attractive colors and pour it into a bowl. Now ask your child to pick out grains of a chosen color with a pair of tweezers and transfer them into another bowl in a particular amount of time. Make this activity into a mini race by joining in with your child to make it more fun! This activity is helpful for engaging your child’s hand-eye coordination.

5. Match the Animal to Sounds

This is a fun activity that focuses on the child’s auditory skills. Start by making placards with pictures of various animals on them. You can hand draw these animals with your child to give this activity a creative touch or get them printed instead. Now place all the cards on the floor and play a random animal sound. Ask your child to match the sound to the right animal by pointing to the appropriate card on the floor. This activity is great for preschoolers as it promotes learning as well as concentration.

We are excited to share that we are coming up with a new series where we introduce a new sensory activity everyday! Since our kids are stuck at home due to the pandemic, these activities will be home-based and incredibly easy to do.