As your three year old spends more time moving, listening, touching, and smelling, he will learn more through the opportunities you provide to interact with his surroundings while using his senses. Try some of the activities on the next page.
Do the following activities with your child to encourage sensory development:
- Squirt a small amount of shaving cream onto the kitchen table. Ask your child how it smells, then ask if he has ever seen someone in the house use shaving cream (get ting him to think and pull from his memory to develop his cognitive skills). Encourage your child to draw shapes or animals in the shaving cream, making a game out of the experience.
- Mimic Me is the name of this step in the game. Write the first letter of your child’s name on a piece of white paper. Use a black marker and write in very large print. Ask your child to mimic you and draw the letter they see on the paper. This type of activity helps your child in the following ways: Your child must pay attention to the letter you wrote on the paper; he must focus to draw the same letter in the shaving cream; he must use his fine motor skills to hold out only his pointer finger to draw the letter; and he must use his hand-eye coordination skills to get it all on target. Sight, touch, and smell are involved in the activity above. Even though larger muscles usually develop before smaller muscles, more advanced motor abilities require your child to coordinate large motor (large muscle) skills with small motor (small muscle) skills.
