Sensory Toys For Building Stronger Muscles

The first step to building stronger muscles is knowing where they are and what they do.

Section: A brief overview of the major muscle groups in the human body.

Section: Your muscles play a vital role in your life, from walking (yes, even that) to running, climbing, and even playing ball with your dog.

Section: They’re made up of three types of fibers that work together to create movement in your body or limbs. Flexor muscles bend joints; extensor muscles straighten them; and adductor muscles move joints toward each other.

The 4 Best Toys For Gross Motor Skill Development

Recommended Sensory Toys for Building Stronger Muscles

Toy Name	Age Range	Description
Sensory Balance Board	3+	A balance board that helps improve balance and core strength
Tactile Sensory Ball Set	6m+	A set of textured balls that provide tactile stimulation and support hand strength
Resistance Bands	4+	Bands that can be used for resistance exercises to build muscle
Therapy Putty	3+	A putty that provides tactile stimulation and supports hand strength
Sensory Stepping Stones	3+	Stepping stones that improve balance and coordination

Chewlery

Chewlery is a great way to introduce kids to the idea of eating with utensils. Children can learn how to use them and practice chewing on something other than their fingers. It also helps improve fine motor skills, oral motor skills, and oral hygiene.

When it comes to developing gross motor skills, sensory play can be an effective tool. Our article on building gross motor skills provides helpful tips and information for parents and caregivers looking to support their child’s physical development through play.

Popsicle Stick Tower

Using popsicle sticks, you can create your own vertical tower. Follow these steps:

Take 5 to 6 popsicle sticks and put them side by side in a row.

Stack one more row on top of these five or six sticks, then repeat this process another time until you have three rows stacked on top of each other.

Now add any toys you’d like to see stacked up! Maybe a small toy car for the bottom layer, plastic cups for the middle layer, and maybe even some metal army men for the top layer.

Make sure everything is balanced so that nothing falls down! But don’t worry if something does fall down you’ll have an opportunity later in this experiment when we rebuild our tower with even stronger materials and try again!

Visual Dice Math

Visual dice math is a fun activity that helps children with visual discrimination and fine motor skills. All you need is a handful of dice and some time! You can choose any type of dice, but we recommend using ones that are colored differently on each side (such as our Rainbow Fraction Dice).

Using at least two different kinds of dice will allow your child to practice making comparisons between multiple sets of numbers.

The goal is for you or your child to match the number on the die with an equivalent number from another set. For example, if I roll “2” on my first die and “1/2” on my second die, I would need to find a way to use both numbers in order for them to add up correctly.

Sensory manipulative toys can be a fun and engaging way to enhance motor skills in children. Learn more about the benefits of these toys and how to incorporate them into playtime with our guide on enhancing motor skills through sensory play.

Hammering Activity

Hammering is a fun activity to give your child. Hammering helps build strong muscles, which is especially important for kids as they grow older. When you hammer, your arm and shoulder muscles will get stronger, along with the rest of your body.

You can also use this activity to relieve stress after a long day of work or school. Kids may not know how to handle their stressors by themselves, so giving them opportunities like hammering helps them learn how to deal with them on their own.

This way, when they have problems in the future (like getting an “F” grade on an assignment), they’ll be able to find another hobby that suits their interests better than just sitting around doing nothing all day long – which might cause more stress later down the road.

Hammering teaches kids about tools too; even if we don’t realize it’s happening at first glance because everything seems so simple (hammering nails into the wood) but there are actually many steps involved before getting through each stage successfully without sacrificing quality over quantity – such as measuring accurately beforehand so everything fits perfectly together once done properly.

This teaches us another lesson later on down life’s path too: always measure twice cut once

Paper Plate Squishies

Paper plate squishies are a great way to help toddlers build their muscles and coordination skills.

First, you will need a plate and some play dough or clay. You can use plain white play dough, or add some color to make it more fun!

Next, grab your glue gun and spread some glue on the plate’s surface. Then roll out your play dough into a long snake shape that fits around in an oval pattern on the plate (like this illustration). If you don’t have any experience with using a glue gun now, practice doing so on another piece of paper first so that you know how much heat to apply without burning it.

When everything is ready, press down firmly on top of your squishy contraption until all sides are firmly stuck together. Now open up those fingers again you’re ready for sensory playtime!

Hand-eye coordination is an essential skill for many everyday activities, and sensory toys can help children develop this skill in a fun and engaging way. Check out our article on sensory toys for hand-eye coordination for information and recommendations on toys that can support this type of development.

Perceptual Motor Worksheet Packet

Perceptual motor skills are the skills we use to move around in our environment. They include hand-eye coordination, visual perception, and tactile perception. We use these skills all day long: when we are walking into a room, driving a car, or even just brushing our teeth.

In fact, these skills help us perform everything we do that involves movement such as playing sports or using tools like scissors or hammers.

The perceptual Motor Worksheet Packet is an excellent way to assess your child’s perceptual-motor abilities and help build stronger muscles at the same time.

This packet contains nine worksheets that will allow you to determine if your child has any impairments that may cause difficulty with their daily activities (such as riding bikes or coloring).

Clothespin Push Ups

You probably have a few clothespins lying around. (If you don’t, they’re cheap and easy to find.) These can be used to strengthen your arms and wrists, particularly the hands. You don’t need any special equipment just grab a few clothespins and start doing push-ups.

If you have time for more than one set of 10 push-ups each day, that’s great! But if not, just do as many sets as you can without overstraining yourself. Eventually, work up to doing three sets of 20 repetitions each day (that’s 120 total).

The best part about using clothespins is that they allow you to target different parts of your hand at once: the middle finger might be working harder than all five fingers in some cases; other times it might just be all five fingers working together uniformly.

This will help build strength evenly across all parts of your hand instead of focusing on one area at a time which would only make that area stronger while leaving other areas weaker by comparison.

Grasping skills are an important part of early childhood development, and sensory toys can be a valuable tool for supporting this skill. Our article on sensory toys for developing grasping skills provides tips and recommendations for choosing toys that can help children improve their grasp and hand strength

Arm Strengthener and Hand Exercises for Kids using Play-Doh and Straws

The simplest way to strengthen your child’s muscles is by using Play-Doh. Take a medium-sized chunk of Play-Doh and roll it into a rope. Have your child hold one end of the rope while you hold the other end.

Then, have them pull on their side as hard as they can. This exercise will help build up their biceps and forearm muscles, which are key in improving hand strength when writing or using scissors.

One easy way to make this exercise more challenging is by using straws instead of ropes! Straws are great because they’re small enough that kids can easily grip them between their fingers, yet large enough so that they work different parts of their hands than ropes do (like how ropes tend to focus on bicep strength).

To use straws for strengthening arm muscles:

Cut your straws into 2″ pieces (or whatever length works best for your child).

Hand one piece over to them; then tell them where it goes either at either end of their arm or somewhere else depending on how advanced you want things going.

Hold onto another piece yourself; then tell both kids that whenever you say “go,” they should try pulling each other’s pieces away from each other until someone wins.

Chopstick Pincer Grasp Game

The chopstick pincer grasp is a great way to strengthen the muscles in your child’s hands and fingers. To play, use chopsticks that are not too slippery and place a small object on top of them. Then, have your child pick up the object using only their thumb and index finger.

It might take some time before they get it right, but with practice, they will be able to do it more easily.

You can also try playing this game with other things like coins or safety pins (do not use these if you have kids who don’t know how yet).

Motor skill development is a crucial aspect of early childhood, and sensory toys can play a significant role in supporting this development. Learn more about the importance of sensory toys in motor skill development in our article on the importance of sensory toys for motor skill development and discover new ways to incorporate sensory play into your child’s routine.

Printable Fine Motor Activities for Kids

[F]ine motor skills are important for children, and they can be tricky to develop. The following printable fine motor activities can help you start your child on the path to better handwriting (or drawing) while also providing an enjoyable challenge.

You may think that your little one is too young for fine motor activities, but that’s not true! Even babies have their own special set of skills required for grasping objects and making the writing process easier later on in life.

These early exercises will be beneficial for them regardless of what type of activity they prefer whether it’s banging blocks together or scribbling with crayons on paper, having fun is always key.

Paper Towel Tube Toss

This is a fun game for kids, and it’s an excellent way to improve fine motor skills. Kids will also build hand-eye coordination as they try to catch each paper tube toss.

Playing this game can be a great way to burn off some extra energy after school or at the end of the day when your child needs a little bit more movement before bedtime.

You can make your own paper tube toss game by cutting up old newspapers, wrapping them around pieces of cardboard, and punching holes in the center so that they’re easy to throw through.

Bottle Cap Balancing

Bottle cap balancing is easy to learn, and it can be a great way to develop your child’s balancing skills and strengthen their muscles.

To play, all you need is a few bottle caps or other small objects like marbles. Set up the bottle caps in columns of three on a flat surface like the floor or table.

Then encourage your child to take turns standing on one foot while trying to balance the column of bottle caps without letting any fall off.

If they’re having trouble with this game at first, you can make it easier by placing fewer items on top of each other in each column or taking away one from every column until they have mastered that level.

Once they’ve gotten good at balancing two columns (three objects), try adding another one for them to balance on top again!

Conclusion

Your little one is going to love these cool toys! They’re fun and they help with motor skills. The number one thing to remember when shopping for toys like these is that you should look for products that are age appropriate (they should be appropriate for your child’s developmental stage).

Ideally, your child will also be able to use them independently, but if not then you can still provide them with support when needed (by helping them hold onto things and so on). Lastly, make sure you supervise playtime so there aren’t any accidents.

FAQs

What are sensory toys?

Sensory toys are toys that are designed to stimulate one or more of the senses, such as touch, sight, sound, or smell. These toys are often used in play therapy and can be helpful for children with sensory processing issues.

How do sensory toys benefit child development?

Sensory toys can provide a range of benefits for child development, including improving fine and gross motor skills, supporting language development, and promoting social-emotional development.

What types of sensory toys are available?

There are many different types of sensory toys available, including toys that provide tactile stimulation (such as play dough or textured balls), toys that provide visual stimulation (such as light-up toys or colorful blocks), and toys that provide auditory stimulation (such as musical toys or noise makers).

How do I choose the right sensory toys for my child?

When choosing sensory toys, consider your child’s age, developmental level, and interests. Look for toys that provide a variety of sensory experiences and are safe and appropriate for your child’s abilities.

Can sensory toys be used for children with special needs?

Yes, sensory toys can be particularly helpful for children with special needs, including those with autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder. These toys can provide a safe and fun way to explore different sensory experiences and improve overall development.

Hellen James

Meet Hellen James, the multi-talented writer and nurturing mother who takes young readers on a thrilling journey through her sensory-infused blog. Drawing inspiration from her own experiences as a parent.