Create Your Own Sensory Storytelling Space!
Sensory play is a magical way to help children explore, imagine, and create stories!
Watch the video and let the storytelling begin!
In this video, Roma and Rachel show how to build sensory spaces at home or in any play setting—perfect for storytelling adventures. Using everyday materials like blankets, cardboard boxes, tables, and clothes pegs, they transform ordinary spaces into exciting story worlds!
Build a cozy fort. Set sail on a cardboard ship. Make a puppet theatre. Create a magical reading nook
The possibilities are endless—so grab some blankets and start building your adventure today!
Story Props
Get Creative with Sensory Storytelling!
To make your Sensory Story Spaces even more magical, we’ve put together some fun and creative arts & crafts activities! These hands-on projects will bring your storytelling to life using simple materials from around the house.
A visual list of useful items to gather
Sensory stepping stones – perfect for little walkers and crawlers!
Shadow Play templates – print, cut, and create your own puppets for storytelling magic
Story cards – turn your child’s drawings into their very own story prompts.
"The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.."
Loris Malaguzzi -see The Hundred Languages of Children,
A List of Useful Things
' Gather everyday materials to spark creativity.
Make Stepping Stones
A fun sensory activity for little walkers and crawlers.
Make Shadow Puppets
Print, cut, and bring your own characters to life with light and shadow
Make Story Cards
Turn your child’s drawings into exciting storytelling prompts.
"Decades of research has shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotional development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules."
Dr. David Elkind
Child psychologist, educator, speaker, and author
More Creative Resources!
Looking for even more arts & crafts activities, puppet-making ideas, and budget-friendly materials? We've put together a collection of useful links to help you get inspired!
Beverly Puppet Festival Activities
This is one of the best accessible, child-friendly resources we found for making puppets. If you enjoyed playing with the shadow puppets, You are in for a treat. This video library has 21 step-by-step puppet activities to download and excellent videos made by artists and performers. From sock puppets to flying bird mobiles.
Art. Play. Children. Learning
Looking for even more creative sensory art activities for children? Check out Louisa Penfold’s blog—a fantastic resource for parents who want to make art fun, hands-on, and meaningful for kids! The blog is packed with inspiration, including: Kids' art activities – Fun, easy projects to spark creativity at home.
Scrapstores in the UK
The scrapstores are a good community resource for affordable materials and can be found throughout the UK. The network supports the reuse of unwanted resources, clean reusable scrap materials (which businesses find hard to recycle so would otherwise be landfilled) are available for children to play.
Schemas
Children's play patterns are seen when children repeatedly carry out the same actions. There are many schemas that they can experience at the same time. Understanding and noticing them can help create more child-centred activities. The ParentZone Scotland's has videos and documents on schematic play.
Artist Biography
Roma Patel and Rachel Ramchurn are the creative minds behind Makers of Imaginary Worlds. Passionate about designing playful and immersive experiences, they love creating work with and for children.
Roma Patel – A scenographer and digital artist, Roma has been designing interactive and site-specific performances, theatre productions, and digital installations across the UK and Europe since 2000. Her PhD research at the University of Nottingham explored how scenography and interactive technologies intersect in Theatre for Early Years.
Rachel Ramchurn – Rachel’s artistic journey began in 2000 with participatory chainsaw sculpture! For over 15 years, she has worked as a freelance artist, exhibiting public artworks and leading social engagement workshops for families and children across the North West.
Makers of Imaginary Worlds
We craft captivating sensory experiences, combining interactive technologies with traditional crafts, prioritising sustainable materials and access.
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