Valentine’s day is upon us – time to get those squishy heart cushions out of the cupboard for your Valentine’s Sensory Story…
…or is it?
Valentine’s Day is here again…queue fluttering hearts or eye rolling – depending on your disposition! But here at My Kind of Book it got us thinking about how we depict ‘love’ in our sensory stories. We have some practical ideas – but also lots of questions!
When we are creating a sensory story that includes ‘love’ our first instinct might be to reach for a heart pillow or soft toy – but the love heart is actually a very abstract symbol and something we only come to associate with ‘love’ through many years of learning and absorbing the association.
Does this mean that we should be avoiding all those lovely squishy, soft, velvet-y love heart toys, puppets and cushions that we might reach for when our sensory story includes the concept of ‘love’? (On the shelves in a shop near you now!)
On balance we think that if a soft, bright, red heart will add a lovely soft, bright, red experience to your sensory story then put it in! Squeeze it, throw it, hug it – with the person you are sharing the story with. Pile it up with other love hearts, knock it down, animate it, hide it, make it ‘pop up’ out of a box…
For us sharing a sensory story is much more about sharing companionship then sharing meaning. This may not be true all the time. If you are telling a story about cleaning your teeth or washing your hands then meaning is probably going to be your priority. But over the years we have come to the conclusion that when sharing a sensory story togetherness, connection and bonding are almost always so much more important than meaning. So let’s have fun with those squishy love hearts!
Some other fun sensory ideas to use for ‘love’ in a story include confetti or a hand warmer in a little drawstring bag. (Hand warmers can be found in outdoor equipment shops or online. The disposable ones are not very eco but very easy to use.)
Being surrounded by confetti or feeling the warmth of a hand warmer are both nice metaphors for the feeling of love. Again the process of associating these with the meaning of love might actually be quite complex…but the experiences of the falling confetti or the little warm bag are so good to share that possibly that does not matter…?
We would love to know your thoughts about this. How do you set about conveying the meaning of complex concepts in your sensory stories? How much do you worry about it? And how many squishy heart pillows do you have in your cupboard?
Remember – not all of my props recommendations are toys! The props I suggest should not be used by children unsupervised.