Discover 101+ Simple Autism Activities to Ignite the Senses

101+ simplistic activities, games, and ideas inspire learning and ignite the senses of each individual across the autism spectrum.

Children and adults love the active, easy learning and playing methods intertwined with responsibility and social awareness.

Not only are these activities fun, but they also promote learning and social awareness.

By incorporating responsibility and social interaction into the activities, individuals with autism can develop important skills while having a great time.

And the best part?

These activities can be customized to fit the needs and abilities of each individual, making them perfect for use in school, therapy, or at home.

Say goodbye to mindless screen time and hello to hands-on, interactive learning with this fantastic resource.

The ideas found in this book are meant to guide caregivers through the journey of developing and increasing the abilities of individuals with disabilities to interact with the world.

Let’s take a look at the table of contents along with 7 amazing autism activities.

101+ Autism Activities

Activity Summary Example – Yoga Ball: Bounce and Roll 🟡

Using a yoga ball have your child sit, roll, or bounce on the top of the ball, or have your child lie on the floor while you roll the ball on top of his body.

How To

There are many different ways to use therapy balls.  

One way involves the child keeping his feet on the ground while resting his belly on the ball with his arms draped around the ball.  

A similar popular yoga ball stretch is done by having the child lie on his back on the yoga ball and then recline on the top of the ball with his feet planted on the floor.  

Also enjoyable is to have your child run up to the ball and push off of his feet to roll on to the top of the ball on his belly with his feet coming momentarily off of the floor and then rolling back down to the floor.  

Children with good balance will often sit on the top of the ball.  

Those children who are developing their balancing skills can sit on top of a ball with an adult’s assistance.  

The adult may find that holding on to the child’s waist and bouncing up and down slightly can provide a fun sensory experience.  

Lastly, some children enjoy lying flat on the floor face up and having an adult roll the yoga ball lengthwise across the torso making sure that the adult is applying weight to the top of the ball through the force of the chest.  

See the picture above for an example of this.

INSIDE SENSORY AUTISM ACTIVITIES 🏠

• 1. Kid in a Blanket
• 2. Roll It Out
• 3. Sensory Brush
• 4. Pressure Points, Joint Compressions, and Hair Tugs
• 5. Rock and Roll in a Laundry Basket
• 6. Give and Receive Raspberries
• 7. Kid Sandwich
• 8. Yoga Ball: Bounce and Roll
• 9. Kid in a Box
• 10. Make a Box Playhouse
• 11. Spin in a Chair
• 12. Play in the Snow Inside
• 13. Climb the Sofa Mountain
• 14. Blanket Fort
• 15. Stand on Your Head
• 16. Find a Good Fidget
• 17. Pop Bubble Wrap

Activity Summary Example – Kid in a Blanket 🛏️

Using a heavy blanket or rug, tightly roll your child up so his body is tightly inside the material and completely surrounded.

How To

Have your child lie down on the edge of the blanket or rug with the side of his body parallel to the edge of the blanket.  

Roll the blanket and the child toward the opposite side of the blanket.  

Once the child is rolled up, show him how to reverse his body by rolling the opposite direction to get out.  

If the child desires, roll him back in the rug until he unrolls himself to end the activity.  

The deep pressure of the tightly rolled fabric creates a squeezing effect that calms many children.

OUTSIDE AUTISM ACTIVITIES ☀️

• 18. Paint the House
• 19. Make Clover Jewelry
• 20. Sidewalk Chalk
• 21. Bug Hunt
• 22. Sprinkler Run and Squirters
• 23. Visit a Large Pool
• 24. Play in the Rain
• 25. Make a Mud Pie
• 26. Roll Down a Hill

Activity Summary Example – Clothespins

Use clothespins to clip onto a variety of items around the house.

How To

Children love to use clothespins.  

Encourage them to use their index finger and thumb when manipulating the clothespins, but if they need to use all of their fingers or two hands that’s different, but okay.  

Clip clothespins on the edges of a blanket, down the side of your clothing, along the sides of paper, or on pull handles for cabinet drawers.  

You can even make index cards with a designated number of dots and have your child match the same number of clothespins to the number of dots on the card.

INDOOR OR OUTDOOR AUTISM ACTIVITIES 🎯

• 27. Blow Bubbles
• 28. Start Some Seeds
• 29. Obstacle Course
• 30. Streamers and Pompoms
• 31. Mini Trampolines
• 32. Limbo
• 33. Balance Beam
• 34. Ball Pit
• 35. Kid Jump Over the Candlestick
• 36. Row Your Boat
• 37. Swinging
• 38. Stretch
• 39. Change Your Method of Transportation
• 40. Red Light, Green Light
• 41. Raise a Critter
• 42. Chores
• 43. Buddy Sports Program
• 44. Parachute Play
• 45. Super Bouncy Balls
• 46. Paper Plate Skating

Activity Summary Example – Parachute Play 🪂

Work together to move a parachute up and down while taking turns holding it, running under it, and wiggling it.

How To

Playing with a parachute works best with a few friends.  

Have everyone playing grab an edge of the parachute.  

Start simple by moving the parachute up and down and enjoying the visual effects and whispering sound it creates.  

Next have the children move their arms at random so the parachute makes waves.  

Add some soft balls in the middle and bounce them around with the goal being either to keep all of the balls in the middle or knock them all out.  

Have the children run one at a time under the parachute when it’s in the up position.  

If your child with autism has difficulty holding on to the parachute, he may find it stimulating to sit under the parachute as it goes up and down.  

I’ve known many children who choose sitting under a parachute as their preferred play.

INDOOR AUTISM ACTIVITIES 🏫

• 47. Dance Party
• 48. Sorting Recycling
• 49. Play in Your Food
• 50. Easy Cooking
• 51. Make Playdough
• 52. Dryer Lint Modeling Dough
• 53. Gack
• 54. Coffee Can Ice Cream
• 55. Dissect a Hollow Vegetable
• 56. Homemade Noise Makers
• 57. Shaker Water Bottles
• 58. Make Your Own Tornadoes
• 59. Grow a Shrunken Toy

Activity Summary Example – Chores 🧹

Designate a chore within your household that your child can successfully complete.

How To

Nearly all children can participate in chores at some level.  

Children who carry out daily chores seem to develop a sense of pride, ownership, and inclusion.  

There are many chores to pick from but start with one activity you feel your child would be successful doing and one you are comfortable relinquishing control of.  

Popular chores for children include

• feeding and watering the animal
• watering plants
• putting away the laundry basket
• making the bed, pushing in the kitchen table chairs
• closing the toilet lid
• organizing the shoes
• locking the doors to the house
• managing recycling
• throwing away trash
• warming your chair (child will sit in your chair to warm it up for you!)
• holding open the door or closing the door
• washing the table
• straightening the toy shelf
• setting the table for meal times
• matching socks
• getting the mail

ACADEMICS 🔤

• 60. Roaming, Reading, and Writing
• 61. Fish for Fun
• 62. Practice Typing
• 63. Rainbow Words
• 64. Make a Movie and Do Video Modeling
• 65. Read a Book on the Potty
• 66. Make a Book
• 67. Create a Schedule
• 68. Sign Language
• 69. Stamping
• 70. Sort and Pair Socks
• 71. Junk Mail Creations
• 72. Lacing Letters
• 73. Photo Match Fun
• 74. Sing and Spell Names
• 75. Magna Doodle

Activity Summary Example – Button Plunge 🔘

Drop large buttons into clear water and watch them slowly move through the water.

How To

First gather several large buttons and fill a clear container with water.  

Take a button, one at a time, and drop it into the water.  

Watch as the button slowly sinks to the bottom of the container.  

PLAY AND EXPLORE 🗺️

• 76. Dramatic Play
• 77. Button Plunge
• 78. Toy Drop
• 79. Sing Like a Rockstar
• 80. Taking Care of Baby Doll
• 81. Build Towers
• 82. Soap Bottle Fun
• 83. Have a Wet Tub
• 84. Have a Dry Tub
• 85. Create a Small Sensory Room
• 86. Create a Large Sensory Room
• 87. Store Bought Games
• 88. Pots and Pans
• 89. Cat and Mouse Play
• 90. Golf Ball Tees in Styrofoam
• 91. Clothespins

Activity Summary Example – Crayon Melt 🖍️

Use a warming tray to melt crayons while drawing and writing.

How to

Cover the warming tray with aluminum foil and turn it on to the lowest heat setting.  

Place a sheet of paper on the warming tray and select a crayon.  

When the crayon is placed on the paper, the heat will warm the wax causing the crayon to glide across the paper.  

Encourage your child to make lines, shapes, drawings, letters, and words.  

When the art project is finished it will appear to have a stained glass effect and looks lovely hanging in a window.  

This is my go-to activity for children who struggle with “bad” handwriting or refuse to write.  

If your child resists writing, utilize this activity to help him learn the love of writing.

ART 🎨

• 92. Create Sticker Art
• 93. Watercolor Painting with Straws
• 94. Race Car Painting
• 95. Rainbow Crayons
• 96. Crayon Melt
• 97. Paint with Your Feet
• 98. Two on a Crayon
• 99. Coffee Filter Art
• 100. Magnet Painting
• 101. Mixing Colors
• 102. Shaving Cream
• 103. CD Spinner

This autism activities set can also be useful for students and families with young children or those with special needs to use during distance learning or e-learning days to motivate and reinforce learning.

Eliminate the restrictive saying, “But he has autism!”

Replace it with “Since he has autism he can do this activity a different way; different but okay!”

Individuals with autism need steady guidance and foundational building activities to navigate through learning.

The activities in this book are meant to accentuate autism.

They can be customized to the functioning level all who are participating ranging from individuals with profound needs to typically functioning peers.

The methods in this autism activities book are designed to shift children into an educationally social environment and away from television, electronics, and undesirable behaviors.

These activities are great for school, therapy, and home and were especially compiled for kids with ALL levels of autism including

• Asperger’s
• individuals who are nonverbal
• individuals with severe cognitive impairments
• those with Sensory Processing Disorder
• persons with social anxiety
• individuals with Attention-Deficient Disorder (ADD) or Attention-Deficient/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• those with Cerebral Palsy

So, download your autism activities book and let the fun learning begin!