Sensory play, and teaching independence at bath time

Parents often ask how to do sensory play at home without buying trays of coloured rice. The answer is that the bath is already the best sensory table in the house.

Give the water something to do

A jug, a cup with a line on it, a sponge and a funnel are enough. Pouring from one container into another is the same skill a child uses at the classroom water table, and it is the one that later makes a pencil grip possible.

Then step back by one job a week

Start with the flannel. Next week, the soap on the arms. The week after, the taps. A three-year-old who washes their own arms badly is further along than one who is washed well.

The goal is not a cleaner child. It is a child who believes the job is theirs.

• Say the order out loud every night, in the same words.
• Let the slow part stay slow, and do not take the sponge back.
• Finish with something they cannot do yet, so the evening ends well.

The same handover happens at school with shoes, aprons and lunch boxes, and the two reinforce each other faster than either does alone.