DIY Sensory Board

I'm so excited to share with everyone how we made our sensory board. What is a sensory board you might ask?? It is basically a board in which you attach objects to be explored by ones own senses(typically the tactile or touch sense). You can make it as simple or complex as you wish. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You can tailor them to infants or curious older toddlers depending on what you place on the board. We started our sensory board when my daughter was around 6months. She was sitting up and really into touching soft things and LOVED ribbon! She is now 14 months and I've added a few things. I decided to use zipties so that I can change or remove things as needed. I didn't want to use tools and wanted to be as economical as possible. Here is what I used:

A peg board. This is 2ftx4ft and bought at Homedepot

Then, its up to your creativity for adding stuff. Since I wanted to do this as cheap as possible, I made a trip to our local Dollar Store. I also stopped at the Carpet Store to pick up free scraps of carpet.

In this picture we have a green car washing sponge, round adhesive mirror, carpet squares with super glued glass gems making a border, a white duster with the handle removed, a purple scrubbing sponge for dishes, a wooden xylophone with wand attached to the board by pipe cleaner.

In this picture I have pony beads laced on pipe cleaners. The pony beads can be moved up and down the pipe cleaner. I also hot glue gunned three mesh drain covers. These are fun to feel and can be squeezed by little fingers. I glued some fake grass from the carpet store and attached a twistable fake flower. I also attached a silk flower to compare textures. The round circular thing is a plastic lid I found laying around the house. I glued googly eyes on it for color recognition and to add a bumpy texture. I also added some fun beads to pull and feel. They make a cool noise when rubbed together.

In this part, I added a purple tambourine (which I should take off a ziptie so that it is easier to generate noise from). Blue square carpet in two color tones. A LED touch light (bought at Target around $5-my most expensive item). The orange adhesive feet are for the bottom of your bathtub...they are textured...kind rough/scratchy. I added three ropes which were very curly at first, I have hopes of teaching my daughter how to braid or tie a knot using these ;). We cant forget the CURLY RIBBON!! Lastly, three hooks which are attached with an adhesive backing. We use the hooks to hang various treasures on. I'm going to walk you through how to attach objects to your board:

You need zipties and an object. This is a recycled container from baby puff snacks. Perfect size for the board and easy to attach with zipties. I also have a fun feather duster I'm going to place in the container. My 14month old loves to put things into and out of containers lately.

First, come at the board from the back and lace the ziptie through one of the holes. If your container or object is large (as is the case with this) you will have to attached two zipties together in order for it to be secure.

Secure your object to the board using the ziptie. Connect and tighten from the back of the board

Make sure you pull the ziptie tight enough so that the object will not be pulled out by grabby hands (toddlers are freakishly strong). I like to trim the excess off the tie so the board lays flat against the wall or floor.

The above picture is of a recycled yogurt cup. Since it is wide, I poked two holes in the side and laced my ziptie through it that way. This is a fun little container for toddlers to place "treasures" inside.

Or, you can hide little treasures for your toddler to discover. Today I hid little plastic shapes inside. You can place a corresponding shape sorter next to your board and invite some shape sorting to happen :) I place my board next to a full length mirror and like to hang little things like sunglasses, bead necklaces, bangle bracelets, hats and puppets on the hooks for dress up and pretend play as well. SAFETY NOTE: infants and toddlers PULL so the best thing to do is to secure this to your wall or wedge a piece of furniture on either side to prevent it from falling down on top of them. Always use this with supervision. You can also play with this flat on the floor but your containers might get smashed if you have a walker or adventurous crawler.
HAVE FUN!!!

Sorry my close up photos are not facing the correct way...my computer is having some kind of glitch and wont save the rotated photos correctly :(