Institute of Imagination Core activity
Core activity

Sensory Wall

A cardboard structure children go inside, sewn together with thread and covered in things to touch, move and look through.

 
Type
 
Duration
under 11
Ages
works from Early Years up
8
Mini activities

What it is

Tunnel entry, hiding nooks, little houses, a trail, a labyrinth. A structure children go into, not a flat wall, and that is what lets one activity serve an age range from under 5 to under 11. A two-year-old crawls through it and posts things into it; a ten-year-old builds the ball run on the outside.

Facilitators put up the structure before the children arrive. Everything after that goes on, into and through it. The wall is left with the host at the end, to keep and add to.

Steps

The structure

Openings cut into standing cardboard make the tunnel entries, the nooks and the little houses.

Joining with thread

Punch or poke a hole, then a plastic needle and thread. The fastening, not a decoration. Glue sticks too, but no scissors.

Like a crazy loom

Thread laced across every opening, in every colour and fibre. The look the finished thing aims at.

The mini activities

Offer one, not eight. A child does one or several; nothing depends on having done another first.

Nooks
Tunnel entry · little houses · mail boxes
Windows
Open · with flaps · with curtains
Holes
Light through them · coloured paper · textured plastic · pipe cleaners · thread
Kaleidoscope
Cardboard · mylar inside · loose parts in a transparent plastic bag over the end
Looms
Threaded through the structure
Material exploration
Paper · plastic · fabric · mylar · cardboard textures · iridescent curtains · bubble wrap
Moving parts
Ball run · abacus · throw the ball · wheels and roulettes · flaps · follow the path · faces
Sound
Its own record: makey-makey-sound. Needs a socket

Materials

Junk materials
cardboard basecardboard examples1 ply2 plyhoneycombkraft papertubescereal boxescupsshapes
Craft materials
cotton threadnatural fibreplastic threadt-shirt threadribbonmasking tapeglue stickspacking tapeoil pastelspencilscrayons
To touch and look through
fabricmylartransparent plastic bagsiridescent curtainsbubble wrapfoamcellophanetextured plastictissue papercrepe paperpipe cleaners
Moving parts
table tennis ballslarge beadsfoam shapesbuttonscotton ballselastic bands
Tools, and what comes back
plastic needleshole punchesadult scissorscardboard sawsMakedo scrusMakedo minitoolsMakedo roto-rings

These groups are the group column in materials.csv, and they are what the packing list is built from, so a row moves group here and it moves on every event page that uses this activity. Quantities are in the same file.

Safety

ChildrenPlastic needles and thread. Tape, glue sticks, oil pastels, cardboard. No scissors in a child's hand, by decision.
AdultsMakedo minitools, scrus and roto-rings, or the older children, decided per event.
First aidCuts and cardboard edges.
With under-5s present: beads, buttons, cotton balls, elastic bands, table tennis balls and foam shapes stay on a table with an adult at it. Thread, ribbon and curtains near a tunnel stay short, taut or above head height. Pipe cleaner ends stay as they are; tell the parent they are wire.