FENNIES BLOG

Your Child

Introducing the Fennies Sensory Experience

Rageena Tahir

EYFS Operations Manager

Imagine unlocking a world overspilling with sensory exploration. Discover how the Fennies Sensory Experience can help your child develop and learn.

Babies are natural-born explorers and in any environment, their curiosity levels are soaring. Therefore, it’s important to offer rich and inspiring sensory experiences during the early years for them to learn and grow.

The Fennies Sensory Experience is a bespoke multi-sensory environment, meticulously designed to open a world of learning possibilities within our Explorers rooms. Whether creating a stimulating learning opportunity or a calm relaxing atmosphere, these experiences teach children valuable development skills, the concept of cause and effect, problem-solving skills, and creativity so that they’re ready to absorb all the information the world around them has to offer.

Here’s what the Fennies Explorers have at their fingertips…

Real-Time Projector

Our first of its kind real-time projector is a fully immersive experience that can transport you to anywhere in the world! Different real-life scenes including a babbling brook, an aquarium, a thunderstorm, and a beach, are projected onto the floor for babies to explore and help develop an awareness of the world around them.

Each video is accompanied by audio to reflect different elements of nature and echo what’s being shown, for example, you can hear waves crashing and birds chirping when watching the beach setting. Recognising sounds in an environment is the first step to building babies communication and language skills, as these are the first noises that they identify. Through understanding what they hear and what they see, they put both concepts together in their mind to build a picture and create connections to the world around them. Not only is this great for visual and audio stimulation but the projector also promotes movement in babies as they will try to reach out and touch what’s in front of them!

Our practitioners can adapt the visuals depending on their key child’s mood or needs, whether it be to stimulate or create calmness. They utilise the projector by tailoring certain scenes to specific times of day, for example, they will select calming images with relaxing audio to prepare children for nap time. This can also be effective if a child becomes distressed to create a calming environment.

This teaches the importance of self-regulation from a very early age and ties in with the mindful activities we introduce in the toddler rooms.

Gel Mats

These clear mats contain striking colours mats that allow children to explore their sense of touch by creating swirling patterns or shapes! Our gel mats activate an understanding of cause and effect because babies see patterns emerge before their eyes as they move across the mats. This fuels the development of sensory processing capabilities as they begin to learn that their actions cause a direct response. They’re also a great way to promote movement as children learn to move in different ways to create different effects as they get lost in the colours and feel of the gel.

Their crawling, stomping, or hand printing encourages movement as they can freely explore the texture and temperature of the mats. We’ve placed the mats in front of mirrors so that as the babies crawl up to see their reflection, they can make different patterns in the gel with their bodies.

Optic cascade

It’s no secret that children love dens and enjoy anything enclosed they can crawl into and feel safe. This is why we created a cosy space in the corner of the room which sits behind a curtain of colour changing optical lights that illuminate an exciting visual and tactile stimulation.

With every touch, children harness new sensory experiences which help to create a strong foundation to build future learning experiences. This later filters into the development of complex learning tasks, concentration, and problem-solving skills.

We use black and white cushions and blankets in this space as, not only are these the first shades that babies recognise but to create a contrast against the colourful lights. The resources placed in this area, like sound pebbles, are also designed to work alongside the visual stimulation of the optic cascade by allowing two senses to work together at once.

Sound Pannel

Children see sound come to life with our interactive sound panel which reacts to the noise by lighting up. Stomping, clapping, and playing musical instruments is strongly encouraged as the panel responds to both changes in pitch and volume to create an ever-changing sensory experience. The lights also move depending on the sound that is made so when children use musical instruments or dance, they can see the lights bouncing along with them.

This interaction through sound builds the groundwork for children’s communication and listening skills. When they share these experiences with other children of the same age, this also promotes emotional development by encouraging engagement and interaction.

Light Tube

The focal point of the Fennies sensory experience! Our playful mood-boosting light tube that cycles through different colours and patterns produces a calming effect proven to soothe babies and promote self-regulation. The colours can vary from warm relaxing hues to vibrant stimulating rainbow effects depending on the time of day or the child’s needs. Our practitioners have learned what their key child enjoys and can tailor the effects depending on this.

There’s also a remote-control box with coloured buttons, when the child presses a button, the lights will change to match that colour. This is a great introduction to using technology and creating a positive understanding of it which they will use later in life.

Infinity Pannel

This illusive panel creates endless illusions and visual stimulation and activates different perception areas. The optical illusion mirror feels as though you can crawl straight through which gives babies an understanding of concepts such as spatial awareness and depth.

This is accompanied by a frame of lights that cycle through different fascinating colours that encourage visual stimulation and general awareness of the surrounding world.