Babies and toddlers learn by using their senses. So, it makes sense that reading sensory books featuring a variety of different textures and materials with your littles helps support their development. Plus, it’s just fun to feel soft fur, squishy silicone, or scary monster skin!
Whether your kiddos are into fuzzy baby farm animals or silly finger puppets, Spiderman or Peppa Pig, these touch-and-feel books will appeal.
Soft and Fuzzy Books for Kids
Start your snuggle fest with Hedge-Hugs and Kisses, the perfect read-aloud board book. Featuring fun rhyming verses and a soft, cozy hedgehog, this book will thrill your toddlers and feel great in their hands.
Storytime isn’t just for bedtime. Cock-a-Doodle Doo, I Love You! is the perfect wakeup for your baby or toddler. Every page includes one of their favorite farm animal’s soft, tactile tails.
Need more baby animal fun? Try Scholastic Early Learners: Touch and Feel Baby Animals. Enjoy petting soft puppies, bunnies, and even a chimpanzee.
Or maybe you have a kiddo who loves things that go. In that case, check out Scholastic Early Learners: My Busy Truck Book. This satisfyingly shiny interactive board book invites your child to play with all kinds of wheeled machinery from steam shovels to trucks.
Interesting Textures! Shiny, Scratchy, Scaly…
Babies love the bright colors and touchable design of Scholastic Early Learners: Shake Look Touch, which includes a rattler, teether, and mirror. This cloth book comes with its own handle, so your littlest readers-to-be can carry it with them everywhere.
Follow the finger trails through this next book and find all kinds of fun new textures. Scholastic Early Learners: Bumpy Squishy Fluffy lives up to its name, encouraging curiosity and play while building your child’s vocabulary at the same time.
Most sensory books focus on touch or maybe sound. But a few incorporate even your kid’s sense of smell into the mix. One of these is Scholastic Early Learners: My Busy Shiny Touchy Smelly ABC, which invites kids to scratch and sniff–as well as trace and feel–the letters of the alphabet.
Favorite Characters
Bring your child’s favorite characters to the party with this next bunch of board books. Touch and feel a soft guinea pig, a slimy goldfish, or a bumpy turtle shell in Peppa Pig: Class Pet (Touch-and-Feel).
Meanwhile, Spiderman fans will love discovering all the textures of their favorite heroes’ costumes and superpowers, from Spidey’s mask to the Wasp’s wings, in Spidey and His Amazing Friends: A Touch-and-Feel Book.
Got a Pokémon fan? Take them on a picnic with Pikachu and friends in Pokémon Playtime. They’ll touch soft flowers, bumpy fruit, crinkly candy wrappers, and more.
Kids who like Paw Patrol — and participating in the story — will love Paw Patrol Finger Puppets Activity Book. It comes with Chase, Marshall, and Skye finger puppets so they can help the pups on their latest mission.
Fun With Finger Puppets
Want more finger puppet fun? Dig into the construction-themed fun of I Dig You!, a board book with a plush lion finger puppet embedded right in the middle of each page.
Or, if singing is more your child’s speed, check out You Are My Sunshine. Based on the beloved children’s song, this tale takes kids on an interactive read-along with an important message of love. The best news is, it’s part of a series of finger-puppet books from bestselling author Sandra Magsamen. So if you love this one, there are plenty of others to explore.
Ready to join in on the fun? Find your next book at The Scholastic Store, and browse more recommended sensory books for kids to touch and feel below.
