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Food Exploration Tick List & Sensory Guide
This exploration guide can be used alongside any of your food exposure activities. It follows a gentle, child-led SOS Approach to Feeding and helps structure low‑pressure sensory steps during food play. Children can move up and down the steps with no expectation to taste – exploring through sight, smell, touch and sound counts as real progress.
Exploration Step | Prompts / Questions | Notes |
Touched it with a finger | What does it feel like? Soft, rough, bumpy, smooth? | |
Held it in my hand | Is it heavy/light? Warm/cold? | |
Smelled it | How big of a smell is it? What does it smell like? | Sweet, sour, spicy, salty, savoury, bready, plant‑y, nutty, bitter |
Brought it to my lips | How does it feel on your lips? Tickly? Cold? | |
Touched it with my tongue | How big of a taste was it? How does it taste? | |
Licked it | Would you like to try a tiny or a big lick? | Sweet, sour, spicy, salty, savoury, bready, plant‑y, nutty, bitter |
Had it in my mouth | What textures can you feel? Squishy, crunchy, smooth? | |
Chewed/bit it | Does the texture change as you chew? Does it get softer/harder? | |
Swallowed it (if ready, no pressure!) | Did the flavour change when chewing? |
Food-Exploration-Tick-List-And-Sensory-Guide