Collages made of textured objects glued to construction paper or poster board are fun for kids of all ages and ability levels. Flowers offers example of art projects using a wide variety of textured objects, such as cotton balls, nuts and bolts, fall leaves, or pinto beans. Feeling the objects, hearing the noise they make, or seeing the colors, helps to increase sensory awareness and develops fine motor skills in children.
Kinesthetic refers to ability to be aware of muscular movement and positioning. "By providing information through receptors about muscles, tendons, joints, and other body parts, the kinesthetic sense helps control and coordinate activities such as walking and talking," according to Mosby's Medical Dictionary. Flowers suggests painting with shoes worn, rather than with paint brushes, as an example of a fun kinesthetic art project.
Using modeling clay and pottery clay to sculpt develops tactile ability. Modeling clay can be used to express feelings of anger or frustration, as it needs to be handled substantially to be shaped, while pottery provides a lesson in patience, since it takes some time to create objects.
Making soap sculptures increases tactile awareness and fine motor skills. This fun art project can be done with children of all developmental levels. Flowers suggests softening bars of soap in water and then allowing the children to sculpt the soap into a shape. There should be different textures of soap as well as different colors of soap to enhance the experience.
Flowers has a sand art project in which baby food jars with lids are filled with different colors of sand by the kids to create sand art. Kids of all skill levels enjoy this activity. For blind or sight-challenged children, sand art at the beach or a small sand box helps them to develop their tactile and kinesthetic senses. Pouring sand into a small bucket with a shovel encourages fine motor skills as well.
"Sensory integration is the ability to take in information through senses (touch, movement, smell, taste, vision, and hearing), to put it together with prior information, memories, and knowledge stored in the brain, and to make a meaningful response," according to by Linda C. Stephens. She wrote an article on Sensory Integrative Dysfunction in Young Children in News Exchange.