Summer Sensory Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Summer always feels like a rich sensory experience to me- the sounds of the bugs, the heat, the long days spent outside.  So to capture that and expand on it (or bring it inside when the only thing you really want to feel is the air conditioner clicking on), here’s some easy, fun, and cheap summer sensory activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

(And while all of these are so incredibly simple, isn’t it the simplest activities that are the most likely to slip our minds whenever our kids ask us what we’re doing today?)

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Water Activities

Transferring “Ocean” Beads

Toddlers LOVE transferring.  I set my daughters up with a lot of different transferring activities throughout the year, but for some reason, their favorite is always glass beads with water.

(Seriously- my oldest daughter has spent HOURS moving what she calls ocean beads from one water-filled bowl to another.)

I just grabbed a bag of glass beads from the Dollar Tree.  Super easy, super cheap.

Scooping Out Ocean Animals

Same idea as the ocean beads, but adding in ocean animals instead for extra learning opportunities.  We personally love the Safari LTD Toob animals– they have several different ocean themed collections.

However, I also recently picked up a small pack of miniature ocean animals from Hobby Lobby.  My preschooler has recently been gravitating more to miniature items and creating small worlds with them.

(And if you’re looking for more ocean themed learning activities for summer, check out my post here on creating a Montessori inspired Ocean Discovery Box.)

Pouring

Pouring is a great skill for toddlers to work on and they LOVE it.  In the summer I’ll set up pouring stations outside for them to practice pouring water into different containers.  And if the water splatters?  Just a benefit on a warm day.

Water Table

The best.  Snag a water table somewhere (they can usually be found used pretty cheap), set it up in the yard, and let your kids entertain themselves for hours.

Explore a Creek

This combines sensory experiences with gross motor skills- great for preschoolers and toddlers alike.

Grab some water shoes, and if you’re feeling extra adventurous- a net or magnifying glass for further exploring.

Dough or Clay

Create salt dough and then press flower shapes or bug shapes. I grabbed some flower molds from Michael’s that are great from these.

To take it a step further, bake the salt dough and then have them paint them! (My favorite salt dough recipe is from Yummy Toddler Food.)

Or if baking salt dough is a bridge too far in the heat of summer, grab some of Crayola’s Air Dry Clay.

Sand Activities

If summer begs for water sensory activities for toddlers and preschoolers, it also begs for sand activities.  Set up a few easy sand activities for your kid outside and bring home some of the magic of playing on the beach:

Searching for Items in a Sand Bin

Simple.  Bury some Safari LTD Toob bugs in a sand box and let your kid dig for them.  (Or add in dinosaurs instead.  I’m not sure what it is about summer, but my preschooler’s interest in dinosaurs always seems to peak in the summer.  Is it the hot weather?)

We also love to bury colored gemstones and pretend we’re finding hidden treasure at a beach.

Sandbox with Digging Tools

Get a cheap set of beach toys, pour some sand into an airtight bin, and let your kid dig.

Kinetic Sand

I’m a big fan of kinetic sand, but I;m not a big fan of how it’s impossible to get out of fabrics and rugs.  So in our home, kinetic sand is an outdoor-only material.

Summer is a great time to turn them loose with kinetic sand. It’s also THE BEST material to use when your preschooler is set on building a perfect sandcastle.

Summer Themed Sensory Bins

Of all the fun sensory bin fillers you can use, I still come back to oats and rice the most often.  For whatever reason, this is what my kids engage with the most.

So to keep it easy, I keep a big bag of rice and a big container of oats with our sensory bins and then just trade out the fillers.

For summer, I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some miniature gnomes and mushrooms for a magical forest theme. I also picked up some garden insects for a bug themed one.

To add onto the bug-themed sensory bin, I tossed in some tweezers and a magnifier glass for my preschooler and hid the bugs in the oats. This was a great way to help my toddler and my preschooler play together with the sensory bin. Each got to work on their own developmental skills (my toddler scooped and poured while my preschooler worked with tweezers) while still playing side by side.

Summer Art

I love putting messy art outside.  Get a giant roll of paper, spread it out, grab some watercolors and paints and markers, and let them create.

Encourage finger painting, collage art with nature items, chalk paintings, etc. Anything that gets their hands a little messy and fully engaged is a win here.

And when they’re done, rinse off their little hands with a hose and send them back to their water table to start this list all over again!