Summer sensory play activities for kids with autism. Many of my favorite autism activities involve sensory play. Whether you are thinking of creating a sensory room at home or just wanting to incorporate some fun and simple Summer sensory activities into your child or students’ Summer activities, you will love these ideas! These activities are suitable for kids with autism of all ages, including toddlers, preschoolers, pre-k and older. For more autism activities, get the Autism Activities Workbook Bundle!
Summer Sensory Play Ideas
Sensory circuits
Sensory circuits are composed of a specific sequence of physical activities that are designed to alert, organize and then relax the senses of the child. Use these sensory circuit ideas all Summer long to incorporate physical sensory play into your home or school programs.
Butter Slime
Looking for the best butter slime recipes? These fun butter slime recipes will provide hours of learning fun this Summer.
Gardening
Gardening is such a fun Summer activity. Use these tips for gardening with children with autism.
Click here to get your copy of the Autism Activities Workbook Bundle!
Water Play
I love this simple Summer sensory play activity with water. You’ll just need some plastic animals, water, and a large Montessori water tray.
Summer Sensory Bin Ideas
Sensory bins are some of my favorite sensory activities for autism.
Garden Sensory Bin
The garden sensory bin is so much fun! The activity includes free printable carrots I created for you that you can simply download, print out and laminate to create your sensory box right away.
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Dinosaur Sensory Bins
This collection of dinosaur sensory bins are so much fun! You’ll love the dinosaur dig, the fishing for dinosaurs ice experiment and the sensory swamp.
Unicorn Sensory Bin
Pompoms and unicorns make this sensory activity so much fun! I love using it to work on colors while incorporating sensory play in every day activities. This activity is easy to create. You just need colorful pompoms, a plastic box and some little unicorns.
Ocean Sensory Bin
Work on fine motor skills, vocabulary and hand-eye coordination with this fun ocean sensory bin. For this activity, you’ll need some wooden fish, a box, dried pasta and wooden fishing poles (to playing the fishing game).
Shape Sensory Bin
Teach shapes while engaging your child or students in a fun and educational sensory activity. I set this simple sensory bin up with just dried pasta, a plastic box and wooden shapes.
These Summer sensory bins are perfect for all ages, including toddlers too!
Summer Play Dough Mats
Dinosaur Play Dough Mats
Use the dinosaur play dough mats this Summer to teach to build fine motor skills, teach new vocabulary and to work on communication skills, all while adding sensory play to your child or student’s Summer activities schedule.
Zoo Play Dough Mats
The zoo play dough mats bundle includes 15+ printable zoo animal play dough mats. These printable play dough mats are the perfect tool to incorporate sensory play into your little one’s daily activities this Summer. Use them to teach the names of the zoo animals too!
Coloring Pages
Coloring pages are a great, printable tool for setting up simple sensory play. Use them to build fine motor skills while having a ton of fun!
Ocean Coloring Pages
Download the free ocean coloring pages I created for you. Just download, print and set up the sensory activity with some crayons or markers.
Pizza Coloring Pages
These pizza coloring pages are the cutest! Your child or students will love using them all Summer long.
Dog Coloring Pages
The children at my learning center love using these dog coloring pages again and again! Add them to your activity line up for some simple Summer sensory play fun!
More Summer Sensory Play
More Autism Resources
- Autism Activities Workbook Bundle – build communication skills, fine motor skills, sensory play skills and daily living skills, while helping your child or students to successfully manage any difficult behaviors, with these fun, educational, printable activities.
- Autism Activities Vault – your collection of 420+ autism activities for the entire school year.
- The Successful Interaction with a Child with Autism Course – learn to better understand your autistic child or students with this complete course.
- Sensory Communication Workbook – Build communication skills with simple sensory activities.
- How to Make a Communication Binder Guide & Workbook – Learn how to create a Communication Binder for your child or student with autism using real photos. Follow my expert guide to learn how to use it to increase communication skills.
- Autism Adapted Books Bundle – build communication skills with my collection of printable adapted books for autistic learners. Autism Social Stories Bundle – a collection of printable social stories to help your little learners work on their social skills.
- Zoo Animals Play Dough Mats Bundle – use these printable play dough mat to work on the names of the animals, build language skills, and increase fine motor strength and precision in a fun, sensory way!
Summer Sensory Play
Enjoy this Summer sensory play with your child or students. Let me know if you have more ideas below!
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First published May 5, 2016. Last updated October 6, 2023 with more information, additional tips, and better readability.
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