sensory play

Posts about learning through touch, texture, and physical materials

What a Wooden Bear Teaches Hands That a Screen Never Will

by
sensory learning for toddlers — two-year-old sitting in carved wooden bear lap drinking from pink sippy cup

There is a carved bear in a mountain town we pass through, taller than I am, sitting forward on its haunches with its front paws curled like armrests. It’s carved from a single trunk, stained a deep amber-brown, flanked by a pair of carved birch trees so the whole thing reads as a forest scene, … Read more

What a Two-Year-Old Learning Chopsticks Reveals About Motor Development

by
toddler motor development — two-year-old learning to use chopsticks

We were at Pho King Good, the Vietnamese restaurant where my daughter has eaten since she was four months old, strapped to me in a carrier. She’s two now — right in the middle of the most intense phase of toddler motor development she will ever experience. That night, she reached across the table for … Read more