Infants aged 0–18 months | Sensory exploration and early physical development
The sensory walk is an inviting, hands-on experience designed to allow infants to explore a variety of textures, colours and materials using their developing senses. The pathway includes different sensory surfaces, such as soft pompoms, colourful craft sticks, crinkly foil, artificial grass, smooth wooden pieces, textured decorations and soft fabric.
Infants are encouraged to explore the pathway at their own developmental level. Younger infants may experience the materials through supervised tummy time, reaching, touching and grasping, while older infants who are crawling, cruising or walking may explore the different textures with their hands and feet.
Educators remain close to each child, observing their reactions, describing the sensations they experience and responding to their cues. Infants are given time to investigate at their own pace, allowing them to build confidence, curiosity and an early understanding of the world around them.
How Does Learning Happen?
1. Engagement — Exploring and Discovering
Infants actively investigate their surroundings by touching, squeezing, patting and observing different materials. The variety of textures encourages curiosity, experimentation and sensory discovery. Repeating actions helps infants begin to understand cause and effect, such as noticing the sound made by crinkly foil.
2. Well-Being — Developing Physical Skills
Exploring the pathway supports body awareness, balance and coordination. Reaching, grasping, rolling, crawling and taking supported steps help strengthen developing muscles and gross and fine motor skills. A calm, responsive educator helps infants feel safe and comfortable while exploring new sensations.
3. Belonging — Building Relationships and Trust
When educators participate alongside infants, respond to their expressions and offer reassurance, children develop a sense of security and connection. Sharing this experience with a familiar educator creates opportunities for warm interactions, trust and positive early relationships.
4. Expression — Communicating Through the Senses
Infants communicate through facial expressions, gestures, vocalizations, movements and sounds. Educators can introduce descriptive words such as soft, rough, smooth, bumpy and crinkly, helping build early language connections. Infants express preferences by reaching toward materials, smiling, pausing or moving away.
Developmental Benefits
- Sensory development: Encourages infants to process tactile, visual and auditory information through safe, supervised exploration.
- Fine motor development: Promotes reaching, grasping, finger movements and hand-eye coordination.
- Gross motor development: Supports tummy-time movements, rolling, crawling, cruising and walking according to each infant’s abilities.
- Cognitive development: Introduces differences between materials and supports curiosity, exploration and early cause-and-effect learning.
- Language development: Builds early communication through educator narration, imitation, sounds and descriptive vocabulary.
- Emotional development: Supports confidence, autonomy and comfort as infants explore at their own pace
Infants learn primarily through their senses, movement, repetition and responsive relationships with trusted adults. They are naturally curious and use their bodies to investigate the environment.
During this experience, an infant may pat a soft pompom, pause to listen to the sound of foil, reach toward a colourful surface or move away from a texture they do not enjoy. Each response provides valuable information about the infant’s interests, preferences and developing abilities.
The goal is exploration, not completing the walk. By offering safe sensory opportunities in a warm, responsive environment, educators support infants’ natural curiosity, emerging independence and development across all four foundations of How Does Learning Happen.
