For this activity, children feel alphabet letters that have been cut out of felt or some other material, such as craft foam. They hold the letters and touch them with their hands while saying the name of the letters out loud. Then they scatter the letters on the floor, close their eyes and try to find a specific letter (as directed by the teacher) through touch alone. This lets them explore their tactile sense and skills in a fun and challenging way.
A sensory mystery box is a box with a lid and a circular hole in one side. The teacher places items inside the box and asks each preschooler to put her hands into the hole to feel the object and guess what it is. The child must rely on her tactile sense in order to identify the object, without the assistance of her other senses. The mystery of the box and the surprise of opening it add enjoyment to the game.
In this preschool game, children sit in front of a large container filled with dried beans or rice. Also inside the container are a series of small objects, such as toys or school supplies. The teacher instructs each child to find a specific object simply by digging through the beans and feeling his way, keeping his eyes closed the whole time. The beans provide an interesting sensory experience for the children, and the competition to find specific items using only their tactile sense heightens the excitement of the game.
Children can add textures such as glitter or salt into their finger painting to improve the artwork and the tactile experience. Preschoolers also love painting on a tabletop with shaving cream mixed with paint. In this activity they can combine their tactile sense with their sense of sight in order to create unique artistic creations.
Young preschoolers might enjoy using a sensory board to play a guessing game. Use a large bulletin board to display objects with different textures, such as a piece of artificial fur, a cotton ball, a strip of plastic or sandpaper. The children get a chance to try to identify the textures as they feel them, giving tactile descriptions of each object. They will identify the smooth, rough, soft and bumpy objects they find, combining their tactile impressions of those objects with their ability to verbally describe them.
Modeling clay can be a tactile activity because the children must use their hands and their sense of touch in order to create new objects with the clay. Children enjoy playing a guessing game by modeling different figures for other children and having the group guess what they have made. They can use their tactile senses in order to create new objects as the other children use their visual perception to guess what they see.