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Design a children-accessible, multisensory environment for free, sensory exploration

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Design a children-accessible, multisensory environment for free, sensory exploration

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From birth, infants are driven to learn by seeking and making meaning from their environments (Gopnik as cited in Shin, 2021).

It is important to explore how infant teachers use and capitalize on multisensory experiences in their daily practice and thus create a stimulating, yet not overwhelming, environment where all activities and materials are appropriate, meaningful, and individualized (Lee, Shin, & Recchia; Page et al.; Recchia & Shin; Shin & Partyka as cited in Shin, 2021).

A wide range of multisensory-stimulating objects and materials should be placed at the reachable levels, made accessible for infants and toddler in both their indoor and outdoor learning environments, providing them an agency of individual freedom and choices for child-led, sensory explorations.

For example, mobile rattles of different colors, textures and sounds should be set up for newborns to see and reach; safe multi-sensory materials such as fabrics, soft toys, wooden blocks, musical instruments and light panels should be placed at the ground and/or low shelfs for crawlers to access to.

Moreover, in terms of environmental engineering, constructing sand pit, carpets, grassland and wooden tiles such different textures of floorings should provide different, rich, tactile stimulations to children.

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Examine cause and effect and develop musical intelligence through sound explorations 

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Examine cause and effect and develop musical intelligence through sound explorations 

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Musical instruments like drums, claps, xylophones, tambourines, rattles and shakers should be placed in both indoor and outdoor environment, away from quiet spaces like sleeping area and book area.

It is for children to examine cause and effect by freely exploring the uses of the tools. It could also foster children's musical intelligence by using the musical instruments with nusery songs, rhythms and tempos.

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Lights, colors, motions, movements as visual stimulations whilst promoting visual tracking skills and motor skills

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Lights, colors, motions, movements as visual stimulations whilst promoting visual tracking skills and motor skills

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Incorporating objects with light effects of color-changing, twinkling, flashing, shining and motions of rolling, bouncing, flowing and shaking etc..

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Planning multisensory activities about food as a means to encourage children to taste the food and practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination

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Planning multisensory activities about food as a means to encourage children to taste the food and practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination

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Infants and toddlers would be introduced to new kinds of food of different textures and tastes as they grow up. Some children are keen on eating and exploring food in their mouths, while some do not. Educators could trial some multisensory plays and exposures to induce children's acceptance and intention in trying new food.

There a study providing "the first investigation into the effects of introducing new fruits and vegetables in playtime activities on toddlers' subsequent acceptance of the foods at a mealtime setting. Results suggest that familiarizing children with the non-taste sensory qualities of foods increases children's willingness to touch and taste them when they are later offered these to eat (Dazeley, 2015, p.4)."

Moreover, grasping, holding and scooping food of different shapes, sizes and textures evolve children's fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. For instance, scooping, grasping small drops of fried rice, peas, slippery slices of watermelon, bananas and fluid yogurt would be challenging for children to feed themselves, comparing to long pastas etc.. Children would adapt their strategies and skills for feeding themselves through on-going practicing during mealtimes.

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3 random colours of paints are poured onto a plain white paper inside of a transparent zipper bag, then placed on a light panel with other lights off in the room. Educator demonstrates actions of tapping, wiping, pushing and rolling the paint with a toy car in the bag, to guide children imitated the actions of mixing and feeling through the bags.

A junior toddler approached to the light panel when he noticed the paints on the light panel. He did the actions of wiping his hands and rolling the car on the paint independently for around 5-10 seconds each, upon being scaffolded by gentle touch beforehand. After that, he was more interested in pulling the bag off the panel.

A crawler was only interested in grasping and pinching the bag with paints, even upon scaffolded by gentle touch and educator’s demonstrations.

2 crawlers refused to take apart in the activity when they saw the paints.

Children are more sensory and interested in exploring the texture and sounds of the plastic zipper bag when touching and grasping it, more than the smooth texture and colour changes of the paints. The visual elements of the activity was attractive to some children, but manipulating paints through plastic on a 2-dimensional surface, was not stimulating enough for tactile encounters for children. Hence, they sought for more tactile stimulations by pinching and pulling the bags. Their fine motor skills were yet mature enough to perform the skills of pushing, spreading and mixing the paints inside of the bags.

To amend the experience, children should be provided with real touch of paints by bare hands on the light panel, for enhancing the receipt of sensory information with the fluid, slippery and coolness of the paint. Hence, they are expected to mix the colours more easily and be engaged in exploring the cause-effect relations of wiping the paints and changes of colours.

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Children aged from 4 months to 18 months are accommodated in this nursery room. The current group size is generally 7 to 11 children attending the class daily. There are apart from the centre's permanent and casual staff, there are on-going attendance of different work placement students in the room.

Children enjoyed practicing their gross motor skills and muscles strengths by crawling and climbing around in the indoor yard which has a rich range of landscapes and play areas, including grass slopes, sloppy wooden deck, sandpit, music area, water play tub and soft foam obstacle course etc.. They love rolling balls upslope and down slope, banging hard objects on wooden boards and floor tiles. Some of them are enthusiastic about water, sand play and using paints, while some of them refused such messy plays.

However, they spent most of the time in the indoor play space with limited toys and resources, besides meal time and sleeping time.

There are a separated sleeping room, meal area and children-accessible hand-washing tap from the indoor free play spaces, which identify routine activities very clear to children.

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Observation 1 was about 2 children looking for, showing different kinds of animals to and babbling to an educator, as well as exploring sound and space by banging the animal toys on the tuff tray and dropping them on the floor.

Observation 2 was about 2 children experiencing the texture and movement of the sand using their hands and body. Child A wondered about the sand sticking on his hands unusually because of his hands were wet from water play.

Observation 3 highlighted Child A and Child B in observing the falling movement and exploring the banging sounds engendered from collisions of the wooden plate and the wooded floor tiles.

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Student name: Lai Yen Wong

Student number: s8067392

Lecturer: Michael Jacob

Word count: 2961 (excluding in-text citation)

Link to Padlet: https://padlet.com/khakiwong000/how-sensory-play-be-utilised-to-encourage-infants-and-toddle-aq4tlh71qzveryu4

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According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, sensorimotor stage is from birth to age 2 that children experience the world through movement and senses and learn object permanence (Ann, 2012, P.6).

In the observations, children were engaged in their explorations and natural learning through all senses in different contexts, by visual tracking, touching, grasping, wiping, patting, tapping, banging, dropping and throwing objects to make sounds and motions, obtain auditory, tactile and visual stimulations and informations, which helped them to anticipate cause and effects and construct schemas.

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Breaking through Piaget’s Theory of Imitation and cognitive development

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Breaking through Piaget’s Theory of Imitation and cognitive development

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During the first year, infants begin to engage in interactions that focus on objects (Adamsom et. al. cited in Rubin et al., 2001, P.127): Infants begin to communicate with and share the use of toys with their peers(Eckerman et al. cited in Rubin et al., 2001, P.127).

In the observations, children were attracted to the play spaces and activities where their peers were being active in. They accepted the co-existence at the same play area. Some of them showed actions of giving and showing toys to other peers. Some of them mimic peers' play actions and ideas. Some of them laughed together in some fun.

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Children's explorative behaviours show learning outcome 4: children are confident and involved learners. They “express wonder and interest in their environments”,“use their sense to explore natural and built environments, “experience the benefits and pleasures of shared learning exploration”and “develop an ability to mirror, repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediate or later.”(Department of Education, 2022, P.36-40)

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Some children were excited in a water play with shaking loose part toys in the vivid orange color cool water, watching and hearing sounds of water splashing.

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A crawler picked up one colorful plastic ball in each hand, imitating the action of an elder peer that bumping two balls together for several times to produce a little clapping sound and a bouncy tactile stimulation.

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Crawlers sitting, crawling, wiggling their bodies in the sand pit and wiping the sand on the desk to seek for tactile stimulation from the texture and visual stimulation from the movements of the sand.

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A junior toddler explored light and images in front of a mirror, whilst banging the wooden blocks on the wooden shelf and the light panel, exploring textures and sounds.

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Children reached to, grasped and dropped animal toys onto the floor to make banging sounds, involving tactile, visual and auditory senses.

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Some sandy animal toys are brought into the water tub for a bath. Sponges and fabric wipes were provided for children for the water play. It was aim to provide a rich tactile encounter for children to feel the dryness of the sand, the cool temperature of water, the squishy texture of sponges and sticky sense of fabric wipes. Actions of grabbing objects in/from the water, squeezing water out from the sponges and fabrics, rubbing the animal toys with sponges and fabrics would be demonstrated and scaffolded by educators for children. A tray of shallow water and resources placed on the floor is designated for crawlers to use and the table tub one are for toddlers to use.

3 crawlers cried when they were invited to be in the water play area that they do not usually used to do. They need familiar educators to comfort, accompany and encourage them to touch the water. Taking some time observing their peers having water play fun, one of them dipped his hand into and felt the water and one of them stayed observing near the water tub. Crawlers needed physical support from educators to ensure their safety.

Some children had great fun, rich sensory stimulations and explorations during the animal bathing activity. A junior toddler was very excited and had a big smile when splashing the water with both hands and crawled into the shallow water tray. Some children smiled when taking the animal toys and polyester wipes out of the water and dropped them on the floor. Some junior toddlers enjoyed splashing and shaking the animals toys into the water.

Children were amazed when observing the drops of blue food colouring diffusing into the water, whilst they stirred and splashed the water with their bare hands. Linking back to their recent colour recognition learning, some red colour drops were added into the blue water, which turned the water purple while children were engaged in the play. The learning of the colour and the pronunciation of “purple” were consolidated inside of children, as they practised the concept from different activities throughout the past 2 weeks.

It is a sensory play with rich sensory elements. In the tactile aspect, children felt the cool liquid water, squishy sponges and sticky fabric wipes. For auditory, children were stimulated by the different splashing sounds of water. Visually, children were attracted to  the movements, motions and colour changes of the water from clear to blue, from blue to purple.

There were totally no fine motor techniques about squeezing the sponges and rubbing animal toys applied by the children as anticipated. However, some unexpected learning was engendered when children engaged in their sensory explorations.

Children explored the concept of cause and effect relations when they splashed and dropped animals into the water, engendering different sounds and movements of water splashing and spilling.

It should be noted that infants show individual preferences about and responses to sensory stimuli. Not only do all individuals have preferences for receipt of sensory information, but some may also be sensory sensitive or sensation seeking(Bagdi et. al.; Thompson et. al. cited in Shin, 2021).

With frequent exposures and educators’ encouragement, it is rewarding to see that some children are getting more adaptable and brave in getting wet in the messy play.

For improving the water play experience, I need to be aware of the temperature of the water. It was told by their permanent educator that the large amount of tape water was too cold for some crawlers, making them felt uncomfortable touching the water. Some crawlers were more acceptable with the water encounter after some warm water was added in and with educators encouragement.

Conducting the activity of a small group of 2-4 children would have allowing more room for children to explore in the activity and ensuring their safety. Some crawlers were observed that they were sensitive to the big water splashes made by the junior toddlers. Therefore, opening a second separated water tub would have allowed more spaced to better cater children’s different needs.

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Sensory explorations with playdough and loose parts

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Sensory explorations with playdough and loose parts

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Responding to children’s curiosity and great interest shown on exploring the material, play dough of pink, purple and blue colours were placed on a shallow tray on the floor, accessible for both crawlers and junior toddlers under educator’s supervision, across 3 consecutive days. Children touched, pressed, pinched, grasped, tore and pulled the play dough, practicing finger muscles strengths and fine motor skills. They explored the sticky texture of the play dough the pulling the play dough and pulling objects stuck on it. They felt the coolness of the material.

A crawler smiled from the tactile stimulations, moved his hands on the play dough, whilst being laid on the play dough on his arms and tummy. A child took a little play dough, trying to put it in the mouth. A junior toddler took a small piece, hid it in her hand and lied down on a cushion. 2 junior toddlers imitated my actions of tapping a hammer on the play dough. 3 junior toddlers mimicked the educator, stamping animal footprints on the play dough. I demonstrated to a few children using a wooden toy fork to stab on the play dough. A junior toddler took the fork, copied and pretended to scoop the play dough like food towards his mouth. Another junior toddler observed the peer, then went to take a toy rake from the instrument supply basket, and raked on the play dough.

Not being a one-off activity, it is brilliant to see children maintained interest in this on-going sensory experience provided to them during independent play whenever they could be closely supervised. I was amazed that some children did not just mimic my demonstration. Upon repetitions, they unexpectedly took some led on exploring the affordances of a range of objects, materials and tools whilst practicing their fine motor skills, finger muscles, hand eye coordination when manipulating them on the play dough. Their imagination and creativity were ignited and provoked in the activity, by inspiration of a range of resources.

Reflected from this experienced for moving forward, the size, thickness and colors of the play dough and types of tools could be enriched, allowing possibilities for children to evolve their play ideas with the material.

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An infant grasped two tingling balls in his hands, attracted by the tingling sounds and keeping his eyes on the balls whilst moving his hands holding the balls.

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Children were given 4 different sizes of clear plastic bottles with large mouths, containing rocks, wooden sticks, purple penne pasta and yellow fisilli pasta to choose from, in which they can see through and feel the movements of the materials. Children shook the bottles and showed their interest for sound exploration. Some children requested to open the lid of the bottle with educators’ assistance. They practiced fine motor skills using their little finger muscles whilst twisting and turning the lid. Children poured the materials out of the bottles with help.

They are exposed to counting and numeracy concepts by counting 10 pieces of rocks, pastas and sticks in each bottle. Then, children practice their attention and focus, hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills whilst picking up and putting the materials back onto the bottle one by one. Children were motivated to keep focusing on and repeat the activity, by hearing the rewarding dropping sounds of different materials into the bottles.

When children finished that fun task, they shook the bottles to produce and explore different sounds made from collisions of various materials in joy. I demonstrated shaking a bottle as a shaker with beats whilst singing “Baby Shark ” to a group of 3 children(2 junior toddlers, 1 crawler), only 1 toddler mimic my action for a short period of time throughout the song.

After 2 days of practicing putting the materials into the containers, red and blue paints were pour and shook into the bottles to become sensory bottles as a spontaneous idea from the student, echoing with the children’s learning about purple colour for the past 2 weeks. However, children’s interest in the activity reduced as the paint blocking the sights and sound effects of the materials. The bottle containing the rocks was the only one which could still caught the children’s interest for the most significant sound effect, under the condition of reducing visual stimulation.

The hands-on, sensory experience also helped children to extend their attention span. The concept of cause (dropped the materials into and shook the bottles) and effect (different sounds and beats) were also explored in the play.

We will further explore rhythms, sounds and weight of the materials by singing some of our favourite nursery songs to extend our ongoing learning.

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Enhancing sensory adaption through repeating different on-going sensory activities and messy play

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Enhancing sensory adaption through repeating different on-going sensory activities and messy play

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Intentional sand play, water play, manipulating play dough and using paint with different context by bare hands are messy play ideas that help fostering children's sensory experiences, especially about textures and tactile sensitivity.

Children consolidate their sensory learning by repetition and constant exposures. Instead of being one-off, these sensory activities should sustain until "repeated stimulus presentations result in decreased response (habituation)(Bremner et. al., 2001, p.140)" in children. An activity should be repeated and re-visited overtime, until children have come to significant repetition suppression of the activity.

Moreover, peers seemed to contribute to the high levels of play and to the positive affect noted in day care and also seemed to facilitate separation from adult caregivers (Rubenstein et. al., 1979, p.1). When peers demonstrate fun sensory messy plays repeatedly, infants who are less adaptable to sensory stimulations would be influenced to start the sensory encounters.

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Igniting and extending child-led learning by exploring cause-effect relations

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Igniting and extending child-led learning by exploring cause-effect relations

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Affordances of multisensory materials should be thoughtfully chosen that could be used as loose parts to form different creative combinations of context which allow children to explore the concept of cause and effect.

Infants learn both when they see acts cause something to happen in an inanimate object and when they see that acts make a social agent do something (Waismeyer et. al., 2017). Infants also learn not only when the cause–effect relations are deterministic but also when the patterns of evidence are probabilistic in nature(Waismeyer et. al., 2017).

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A junior toddler tapped a rubber stamp on the red and blue paints on a white paper, exploring the paints' slippery texture and colors.

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A junior toddler pulled 3 pieces of scarf out of an empty tissue box in search of 2 tingling balls, after he saw an educator hiding them inside of the box and shook the box with tingling sound. The child's concept of object permanence, problem solving skills and fine motor skills were being practiced, whilst a heart of curiosity was lit up.

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2 junior toddlers came to the sandpit by themselves when they heard the student singing “Old McDonald had a Farm” and saw her manipulating the animal toys dancing in the sandpit. 3 other crawlers were invited to the sand pit by the student. Some children sat on the bottom, some stayed on their knees and some walked around when exploring in the sand pit.

I demonstrated burying the animal toys totally in the sand, swept on the sand using my hands and dug with a shovel to reveal the animals. Children were engaged in their own sand explorations, grasping and releasing the sand between fingers, scooping the sand with shovels and wiggling their body in the sand. No children had the intention look for the animal toys under the sand.

The student pulled some animal toys half way out of the sand, pointing to a rabbit toy, hinting a junior toddler to pull the toys out of the sand. The toddler smiled at the student, squatted down and took the toy out.

Children were so much more attracted by the tactile and visual sensory stimulation from manipulating the sand that they do not played with very frequently rather than looking for the hidden animal toys that they encountered in the indoor play space every day.

Even though the outcome of examining children’s concept of object permanence is not achieved, it was happy to see children made their own meaning play agenda and sensory explorations with tools and sand.

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non-taste sensory properties. A nursery intervention to increase children's willingness to try fruit and vegetables. Appetite, 84, 1-6.

Department of Education. (2022). Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia V2.0. Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/EYLF-2022-V2.0.pdf

Rubenstein, J. L., & Howes, C. (1979).Rubenstein. (1979). Caregiving and infant behavior in day care and in homes. Developmental Psychology., 15(1), 1–24.

Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Laursen, B. (Eds.).(2011). Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups. Guilford Press.

Shin, M.(2021). Exploring multisensory experiences in infants’ learning and development in the child care classrooms. Early Child Development and Care, 191:13, 2116-2127, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2019.1695127

Waismeyer, A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2017). Learning to make

things happen: Infants’ observational learning of social

and physical causal events. Journal of experimental

child psychology, 162, 58-71.