When the child is still under one year of age, the child is in the phase of training his motor with various small activities such as prone, crawling, or lifting the head. But in addition to practicing motor skills, sensory capabilities also need to be trained because it is related to the cognitive of your child. Sensory ability can be trained through the senses, including vision, hearing, smell, and touch. The benefit of training sensory in children is understanding and being more aware of the surrounding environment.
In this digital era, children play more with their gadgets. Children's toys are a tool and way that supports children's growth and development, including sensory and motor skills. Children's sensory abilities are, in fact, interrelated with increasing brain intelligence, indirectly related to the ability to communicate and socialize.
Five sensory systems that must be stimulated as a child:
- Tactile stimulus; stimulation through touch and pressure that trains the sense of touch
- Olfactory stimulus; stimulation through smells and aromas that train the sense of smell
- Visual stimulus: through visual stimulation to train the sense of sight
- Auditory stimulus; stimulation through sound to train the sense of hearing
- Taste stimulus; stimulation in the form of taste and texture of food to train the sense of taste.
Types of games that can train sensory
1. Assembling puzzles
Puzzles can improve children's ability to use the muscles in their hands and fingers. In addition to training muscles, motor skills are also well-honed. Cognitive children are trained when assembling and putting together puzzle pieces.
2. Games to distinguish colors
Providing games with many colors in each part of the toy can improve children's sensory and motor skills. An example of a game you can make yourself at home is grouping items of the same color into different containers. Coordinating different colors will get kids used to practicing being organized.
3. Sand play
Occasionally letting children play in the sand, of course, with supervision will help the development of three children's abilities, namely physical, cognitive, and social-emotional. Sand play can introduce children to soft, rough, dry, or wet textures. Many sand games can be purchased at the toy store. However, bringing children directly to playgrounds or the beach can help them socialize with other children their age.
4. Sensory books
Currently, many children's books introduce various textures ranging from soft, hairy, rough, and wavy materials and others. Usually, these pictures can also be removed to make the book more exciting for children. This book can teach children about many textures and feel them directly with their hands. Besides textures, some books introduce sounds when the button is pressed.
Training children's sensory and motor skills early is one way to develop children's muscle and cognitive abilities. Every stimulus from each stimulus becomes the basis for making children smarter in understanding the environment around them. This is good for helping the growth and development of children to be healthy and strong.