My children really enjoy Sensory Play and so we were thrilled to try out Playfoam by Learning Resources.

Playfoam is made up of tiny, coloured, squashy foam beads that all stick together. It can be moulded into different shapes…or just squished and squashed for the pure fun of it!

What did we like about it?

• Therapeutic- The children (and if I’m honest..and me!) found it really relaxing to play with. Not just because it feels interesting between your fingers, but it also has a lovely crunching sound when you pull it apart. Its fantastic for active children, like mine, that need a really good incentive to sit still and calm! As a qualified Special Needs Coordinator, I can also see the huge benefit of Play Foam for children with Special Educational Needs- who could use it as a way of relaxing when feeling overstimulated.

• Easy to Mould– I loved how incredibly easy it is to mould. It’s a lot easier than other products we’ve used. This meant the children got a lot of pleasure from using it, as they could easily make what they wanted to, without any help. (I also secretly loved, that they were pretty impressed with what I could create too!)

• Fine Motor Skills-  By squeezing and manipulating the Playfoam, children are being given an interesting and fun opportunity to develop their Fine Motor Skills. These are the skills that are important for learning to write (find out more here)

• Messy Play without the Mess!- Like most children, mine love messy play. Messy play is fantastic but there’s always the huge disadvantage for parents and carers that have to tidy up afterwards. Playfoam is brilliant as it allows children to enjoy messy play, but without the resulting mess! The playfoam is easy to put away, it all just sticks together and it doesn’t dry out if you leave it out.

• Sensory Medium for Forming Letters:  We really enjoyed using it to help practise forming letters, so much so that we’ve added it to our blog post on Sensory Ways To Form the Letters of the Alphabet.

Want to buy your own? Click on the links below to be directed to Amazon

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