Today’s sensory resource is a self-regulation tool that is very popular among therapy professionals and educators: an all-new Summer Sensory Stations set! This set of printable sensory path activities are nice because they can be printed off, laminated (or placed in a page protector sleeve), and hung in a hallway. We’ve received so much great feedback about out other seasonal sensory stations that this summer version was a must! Add this resource to your Summer occupational therapy activities.
You’ll want to check out the other sensory station printables at the bottom of this post.
Summer offers countless opportunities to incorporate movement into a child’s day, making it the perfect time for summer sensory activities. Whether you’re working with children in occupational therapy, summer school, camp, or at home, sensory movement helps support attention, body awareness, emotional regulation, and motor planning. These activities also provide structured opportunities for movement during long summer days when routines often change and children need additional ways to stay regulated.
A printable sensory path is an easy way to encourage purposeful movement without requiring special equipment. Simply print the pages, place them on the floor, and let children jump, stomp, crawl, balance, and move from station to station while building important developmental skills.
Summer Sensory Stations
A DIY sensory path can include a few quick stops to add deep breathing, mindfulness, proprioception, vestibular input, eye-hand coordination, crossing midline, and whole-body movement.
And that’s just what this set of summer themed sensory stations includes!
The movement-based stops offer users to take a break at various stations and integrate movement, coordination, and visual input with deep breathing, and heavy work.
What a great way to add a quick brain break between activities or to get ready for a therapy session!
How to Use Sensory Stations
Creating sensory stations is a simple way to add movement throughout the day. Instead of asking children to complete one long activity, sensory stations encourage short bursts of movement that help reset the nervous system and improve attention before returning to learning or play.
For example, you might create stations that include:
- Jumping
- Animal walks
- Balance poses
- Cross-body movements
- Deep breathing
- Heavy work activities
- Vestibular challenges
- Visual tracking games
These sensory station ideas work well indoors or outdoors and can easily be adapted for classrooms, therapy clinics, camps, or home programs.
Free Printable Sensory Activities
One of the easiest ways to encourage movement is with free printable sensory activities. Printable sensory paths provide visual cues that guide children through a sequence of movements while supporting executive functioning and motor planning.
Unlike random movement breaks, sensory paths combine multiple sensory systems including:
- Vestibular input through jumping and spinning
- Proprioceptive input through pushing, crawling, and stomping
- Bilateral coordination through crossing midline
- Visual motor skills by following the path
- Motor planning through sequencing movements
These printable activities can be reused throughout the summer and require very little preparation.
Summer Sensory Ideas for Home and Therapy
We like using the printable sensory path pages in the everyday of Summer. It’s a great way to add calming or alerting sensory input into the day. Print off the pages and hang them on the way. Then you can other sensory processing strategies as well.
These summer sensory ideas make excellent additions to occupational therapy sessions, summer home programs, and classroom brain breaks. Consider pairing your printable sensory path with seasonal activities like:
- Water balloon tosses
- Sidewalk chalk obstacle courses
- Beach towel animal walks
- Pool noodle balance beams
- Bubble chasing
- Garden scavenger hunts
- Nature walks with movement challenges
- Sprinkler jumping games
Combining printable movement stations with outdoor play keeps children engaged while targeting balance, coordination, body awareness, and self-regulation.
Free Sensory Station Packet
In this summer themed set of activities, you’ll find a printable page for each “station” or stop along the sensory path:
Bee path infinity loop-
The first page in the summer sensory path kit is a bee infinity loop, which is great for mindfulness, deep breathing, crossing midline, eye-hand coordination.
Tracing the infinity loop offers an opportunity for mindfulness through the summer bees’ paths as they move along the loop. This creative way to foster visual attention, self-regulation, self-awareness, coping skills, and concentration is fun for summer! By tracing the loop, hand-eye coordination and mindfulness allow the user to be more present in the moment, and more aware of themselves.
Some users may stand on an uneven surface while doing this activity to challenge balance and visual skills. Think about adding a gymnastics mat, slant board, balance pod, or other uneven standing surface.
Others may want to kneel or do a lunge while completing this activity to further challenge balance and coordination skills. The nice thing about the printable sensory station is that it can be raised or lowered on the wall easily.
Leap like a dolphin-
The next page in the sensory paths for summer is a “leap like a dolphin” activity. It’s a powerful activity for vestibular input, motor planning, and proprioceptive heavy work
Proprioception offers a way to “wake up” the joints and muscles in the body. This leaping activity can be done from a standing, kneeling, or from the floor. Proprioceptive input from the muscles and joints provides information about body position, weight, pressure, stretch, movement and changes in position in space, so this leaping activity adds a summer theme!
Beach ball wall push-up-
Next in the Summer Sensory Stations kit is a beach ball wall push up page. Add whole body proprioceptive input through the upper extremity: shoulder girdle, elbows, wrists, and arches of the hands. Plus wall push ups are a great strength and stability exercise for the core.
You can modify this activity to place it lower on the wall for a lunge position, or even can do the wall push-ups from a seated position to challenge seated balance. This is a great motor and sensory opportunity for wheelchair users.
Seashell trace and breathe printable-
Users love our spiral path deep breathing exercises. There is so much heavy work benefit to filling and emptying the lungs as a self-regulation strategy.
Follow the circular path from the crab to the seashell while breathing in. Then follow the path again to breathe out. This visual offers a deep breathing exercise for filling and emptying the entire lungs, which is a great interoception and proprioception exercise for mindfulness and self-regulation.
Summer Sand Squats-
Finally, the last page in the Summer Sensory Stations printable is a summer-themed squat exercise.
Users can do a certain number of repetition of squats along with the visual for a balance activity and coordination exercise. This visual is left open-ended but you could challenge users to pick up an object from the floor for more balance opportunities, or you could ask them to move their hands or keep their vision on an object for visual attention, etc.
How to Use these Summer Sensory Stations
Using these Summer sensory path stations is simple:
- Print off the pages.
- Laminate them or slide them into a page protector sleeve. This way the sheets can easily be cleaned with a spritz of cleanser or disinfectant spray.
- Hang the pages in a hallway to create a DIY sensory path. Or, hang them in a corner of a room to make a sensory calm down corner.
You can use these stations as a brain break, a scheduled sensory diet activity, a calm-down activity, or a transition activity for routine sensory input. The stations are great because they can be used with all individuals, making them perfect for a groups of children at a sensory summer camp (or any type of summer camp!) or meeting individual needs during therapy sessions.
Occupational Therapy Benefits of a Sensory Path
From an occupational therapy perspective, a printable sensory path is much more than a movement game. Every stop along the path is an opportunity to strengthen skills needed for success in school and everyday activities.
A sensory path can improve:
- Body awareness
- Motor planning
- Balance
- Coordination
- Bilateral integration
- Visual motor integration
- Executive functioning
- Attention
- Self-regulation
- Emotional regulation
Because movement activates multiple sensory systems at once, these OT sensory activities provide meaningful opportunities for children to organize their bodies before classroom learning, handwriting, reading, or other seated tasks.
Want these Printable sensory Stations?
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Looking for more Sensory Stations?
Check out these other themed sensory station printables:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
