Sensory Room: How to Build a Successful Sensory Room for Greater Brain Development

This article provides helpful toys for your child’s sensory room. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Many parents, professionals, Pediatric Therapists and Occupational Therapists have asked what items to use for a sensory room. While it may take many months, even years, to acquire the equipment needed for your students, there are a few key items you can add without breaking the bank. All the other items, you can add to your sensory room overtime to help your child or student with sensory integration.

Top Items to Add to Your Sensory Room

The number one item you want to add to your sensory room is a floor scooter. Floor scooters allow your child to glide in the prone and supine positions, it strengthens your child’s core, improves balance, supports activities that enhance bilateral coordination, builds your child’s visual-motor skills for reading, and last but not least, improves hand-eye coordination for handwriting.

Another key item to add to your sensory room is a weighted bean bag used for improving your child’s attention and focus while strengthening your child’s visual-motor skills for reading and tracking.

Swings are also a great item to add to your sensory room if you have the space for them, and most hammock swings aren’t that expensive. Swings support an underdeveloped vestibular system for attention and focus, calm a child with sensory overload or emotional grounding issues and provide “hugging” sensations that help the child feel secure.

Dribbling balls and sensory balls are other easy items to add to your sensory room. It’s amazing how many kids can’t dribble or bounce a ball, which could explain why they struggle with reading and writing ability. If they don’t have the hand-eye coordination, proprioception and visual-motor skills to control a bouncing ball, they won’t be able to write across the page, track words on the page and apply the right amount of pressure when using a pencil to write their name. Different types of balls allow your child to cross the midline, enhance processing speed and can strengthen many areas of the brain.

Sensory Room Tools

A few other favorite items that have greatly benefited students’ learning ability are listed below.

Sensory Bean Bags	Nylon Bean Bags	Balance Beam
Weight Bars	Teeter Popper	Exercise Ball
Dribbling Balls	Hammock Swing	Hippity Hop Ball
Joey Jump	Play-Doh	Pool Noodles
Orange Cones	Basketball Hoop	Foam Hoop Holders
Sensory Balls	Bead and Thread	Rolling Pins
Crawl Tunnel	Ball Pit	Gong Top
Hula Hoops	Peanut Ball	Gymnastics Mat
CornHole	Floor Scooter	Sensory Stepperz
Pogo Jumper	Hammock Pods	Wobble Chair
Curve-A-Beam	Jump Rope	Cargo Net
Training Hurdles	Jump It Steppers	Bosu Ball
Figure 8 Wooden Train	Mini Trampoline	Resistance Bands

Sensory Room Checklist

To access the checklist of items above for your child or student’s sensory room, complete the information below.

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Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs