aspire : home learning

 Aspire Pathway – Home Learning Ideas 

How your child learns: 
Through communication development, emotional literacy, structured play and early independence. 

Please find below resources to help families support their child’s sensory needs, communication skills, and emotional regulation through simple, practical activities you can use at home.

You don’t need specialist equipment or lots of time — small, consistent strategies woven into everyday routines can make a big difference. Whether your child needs help managing big feelings, expressing themselves, or staying focused and regulated, you’ll find ideas and resources here that are flexible, realistic, and designed for real family life.

Explore, try things out, and adapt ideas so they work for your home. You know your child best, and even tiny changes can have a powerful impact over time.

Physical Activites

  • Dance to music

  • Family work out videos on youtube

  • Make a circuit in the house and encourage children to do a different activity in each area (jump/hop/stretch/lie down/touch toes etc)

  • Foot/hand massage

  • Balloon volleyball

  • Jump on the bed/ trampoline

  • Animal walk – slither like a snake etc

  • Laps of house or garden (count these together)

  • Bubble play

  • Catch and throw a beanbag/ small ball

  • Bubble wrap on the floor – jump to pop it

  • Obstacle course in the living room with cushions/blankets to explore

  • Hang a door fringe from a doorway and jump through

  • Sit or roll on a gym ball

  • Lie down while you flap a parachute or sheet

  • Skipping rope

  • Upside down on the sofa

Calming Sensory Activites
These activities will calm our bodies if we are overstimulated or dysregulated

  • Wearing Tight Clothing

  • Quiet time in sensory tent or dark room

  • Using heavy or weighed blankets or lap pads (check out the whole guide for weighted blankets here and how and when to use weighted lap pads.)

  • Vibration (is calming rather than alerting when used for longer periods of time)

  • Handheld massagers

  • Vibrating cushions/pillows

  • Teethers and chewable toys

  • Massage

  • Kneeding playdough or therapy putty

  • koosh balls

  • stress balls

  • hugs

  • squeezing into tight spots or behind furniture

  • wrapping up tightly in blanket

  • sleeping in stretchy sheets that are tucked in on sides

  • laying under a large yoga ball

  • Sit or stand or a wobble cushion or wiggle seat (great for meals, homework, and crafts)

  • Listening to rhythmic or soft music

  • Wearing noise cancelling headphones

Watching slow moving or soothing images

  • Fish tank

  • Lava lamp

  • Slow changing lights

Sucking/drinking

  • Drinking something warm

  • Sucking thick milkshake through a straw

  • Drinking something cold

Slow rocking

  • Rocking chair

  • Hammock

Messy Play

Explore a ‘dry’ resource such as breakfast cereal, rice, pasta, raw chickpeas, in a big tray. Hide interesting items/ favourite toys or figures/ numbers or letter. Dye the resource different colours with food colouring. Use scoops, cups, different sized bowls, whisks etc to explore

  • Waterplay – fill a big tray with water and fill/empty pour and explore. Change things up by adding food colouring, bubbles, herbs, glitter, ice,warm water. Add plastic sieves, cups, tubes, jugs, spoons

  • Sand – use play sand or make your own (grind up Jacobs crackers, mix baby oil and flour) explore using buckets, spades, spoons, different sized pots

  • Decaf coffee grounds and cooked spaghetti (looks like dirt and worms)

  • Ice – freeze objects inside or dye with food colouring, try big and small iceblocks

  • Jelly – set toys inside, make different shapes, flavours and colours

Slime and Doughs – experiment with different amounts of dry and wet ingredients, add the wet things slowly and if it gets slushy add some more dry. Add food colouring, smells, spices, herbs, glitter, seeds, lentils – anything to change the appearance, smell and texture. Be aware that not all of these are taste safe, so If your child mouths things then be careful. Make sure all children are supervised at all times.

  • PVA glue and liquid starch (slime)

  • Cornflour, edible basil seeds and water (slime)

  • Chia seeds and water (takes 24 to be ready after mixing) (slime)

  • Flax seeds and water (takes 24 to be ready after mixing) (slime)

  • Psyllium husk and water cook in the microwave til its rubbery 1 minute at a time, stir in between (flubber)

  • Cloud/Fairy Dough - Corn flour and conditioner

  • Foaming Dough - Shaving cream and corn flour

Paint

  • Paint tracks by pushing cars through paint

  • Make stamps with vegetables or use items from the home (potato masher/toothbrush etc) put paint onto a flat sponge and use as the pad for your stamp. Explore with paper

  • Put paper on the floor and encourage whole body/ footprint painting

  • Finger paints (make your own by mixing aloe vera gel and food colouring or yoghurt and food colouring)

  • Mix shaving cream and paint/food colouring

  • Blend coloured veg with water and flour to make paint (beetroot - pink, carrot – orange, turmeric – yellow, spinach – green, blueberries – purple)

Alerting Sensory Activites
These activities will wake up the muscles in the body. They will stimulate the senses and increase body awareness.

  • Wheelbarrow walking.

  • Animal walks (e.g bear walks, crab walking, frog jumps)

  • Trampolining.

  • Cycling or using a scooter.

  • Swings (forward and back, side to side, rotary)

  • Rough and tumble play.

  • Deep pressure squishing or sandwiching with pillows or balls

  • Spinners and roundabouts

  • Jumping on the spot

  • monkey bars

  • ropes

  • slides

  • through a tunnel

  • outdoor swings

  • swinging child in a blanket

  • pushing empty wheelie bins inside

  • raking leaves

  • pulling weeds

  • shovelling mud/soil

  • vacuuming

  • pushing shopping trolley

  • carrying a laundry basket

  • a rope tied to a door knob or heavy object

  • crunchy foods

  • salty or spicy foods

  • chewy jewellery

  • chewable pencil tops

  • chewable safe toys

  • teethers and chewable toys

Vibration (is alerting versus calming when used in short bursts)

  • handheld massagers

  • vibrating cushions/pillows

  • various animal walks (walking like a crab, hopping like a kangaroo, etc.)

  • row, row, row your boat with a partner

  • Crashing and jumping into pillows (put all of your pillows or soft toys in a pile on the floor)

Playing with textures (Stimulates the tactile sense)

  • shaving cream

  • finger Paint

  • mud

  • wet sand

  • water

  • ice

Play Together
Please remember that it is ok if your child doesn’t explore toys in the way you might expect them to, try to follow their interests and join them in their way of exploring. You can model different ways to do it positively

  • Intensive interaction – join your child at their level and respond positively to their noises, actions and exploration with whatever they are engaging with

  • Treasure baskets – fill baskets/tubs with ‘like’ objects that are safe moth and explore. See photos

  • Cars - explore cars and line them up or drive them around, make a ramp with the ironing board and roll them down

  • Inset Jigsaws

  • Build towers

  • Stack mixing bowls or different sized plastic cups

  • Sort items of different colours into muffin tin holes, plastic pots, egg boxes

  • Look at books or photos

  • Sing songs

  • Fill clear plastic bottles with glitter, oil, water and food colouring to make sensory bottles – explore together

  • Hide toys under blankets for your children to find

  • Close the curtains and explore with torches

  • Put paint into a freezer bag and tape it up, for children to explore

  • Put hair gel and googly eyes in a tapes up freezer bag

  • Try a range of hats on in front of the mirror

  • Put small toys in a box for children to get in and out

  • Fill a basket with fluffy toys to explore

  • Play a drum, drop items onto the drum to make a range of noises

  • Explore shakers and musical instruments

  • Scribble with pens/crayons onto different surfaces – paper/foil/window/oil cloth/ paper towel/ fabric

  • Stick stickers onto different surfaces

  • Playdough

Useful Websites

  • Tiny Happy People - Resources and activities to support learners at the early stages of development

  • Sensory Spectacle - Youtube link for sensory spectacle – resources and videos to help build your understanding and give you the tools you need to support adults and children with sensory processing disorder.‍