I found Sunny Day Studios after we found out we were moving to Clarksville again. Going through Instagram and finding things to check out when we move makes me feel like my scrolling is serving a purpose. 😂

Sunny Day is a sensory play studio with both indoor and outdoor spaces, even an art room!

On our first visit to the sensory play studio, I met the owner Lindsay and we got to talking about how neat it is to see HOW each kid chooses to play. I also got to photograph their Fall Fest earlier this month which was such a blast!

After talking with her a few times about sensory play, I thought it might be fun to talk more in depth and share our conversation.

So, without further ado, here is our chat!

WHAT IS SUNNY DAY STUDIO?

MEGAN: Hi Lindsay. Thank you for talking with me today. Would you start off by introducing yourself and how you came to start Sunny Day Studio?

LINDSAY: Sure! So I'm Lindsay. I'm a Clarksville native. I have three boys and my husband and I have lived in Clarksville our whole life.

So with Sunny Day Studios, I had been doing photography for the last decade but before then I was an elementary school teacher, and so I've always had a love for children and then, having my own kids, sensory play was like HUGE for my kids when they were little.

With Sunny Day, I kind of envisioned it being more classes but once we started doing open sensory times, so many families loved that and there isn't really anything like that locally so that just really took off. And so from there, we just changed our business model. We realized families wanted to come do sensory play. They were interested in that. They liked the freedom to come when they wanted to.

We started last December and it's grown pretty quickly since then.

M: That is just amazing to me to know that it's less than a year old and how you've already made tweaks to it to fit what families want and everything and… Bravo!

L: Thank you!

WHAT IS SENSORY PLAY?

M: So for anyone who doesn't know what is sensory play? How would you define or describe it?

L: A lot of families are still kind of unfamiliar with what that means and so, for us, it's really just exposing your children to different textures and different ways to play. We incorporate a lot of different textures in our play. We have a sensory bin area which is where kids can play individually. And so with that we have some bins that have sand and some that have food items. We're trying to expose children to different things that maybe they don't play with every day.

Another way we incorporate using your different senses is through our messy play days and through that we have a lot of messy items like shaving cream, cornstarch and water, which is a really interesting texture…

M: Oh, is that like oobleck?

L: Yes, it's almost like a slimy texture, which a lot of kids have never played with before and so through sensory play they're getting chances to feel these different things, experience different things, but also it's a great way to socialize kids.

We have a lot of children that come in that aren't in any type of school. So through coming to our studio, they're able to play with a lot of kids and because we don't have a strict age requirement; we say our space is ideal for 18 months to 6 years; but kids are being exposed to kids at all different ages. We love like the mixed age play as well.

We do a lot of open-ended things, especially with our outdoor area. There's so many different ways they can play and so it's really allowing kids to use their imagination, their creativity, and that's kind of what we hope when they come to our space that they're able to do.

M: Yeah, that's really unique that you have indoor and outdoor spaces and so it kind of feels like you're just going to someone else's house to play!

L: Yeah, I have three boys, so children - especially boys…haha - sometimes doing those types of activities at home is very stressful for moms. I know that like when things hit the floor for a lot of moms it’s somewhat triggering at home when the house gets messy so we really try to just tell moms and dads, “hey, this is a place you can come and your kids can make messes and that's okay.” We want it to feel homey, we want to feel inviting, but we're also okay with them making messes and we KNOW that kids are gonna make messes and so we try to make it just a welcoming, homey feel. I’m glad that you said that because that truly is the vibe that I want: our backyard to feel like you're just going to play in a backyard, and we don't want it to feel super formal. We want your kids to just feel like they're at home every time that they come.

M: Oh, I love that! For me specifically; we just got a puppy, and so that's another boundary that makes it difficult to do that kind of stuff at home. Because there's, you know, an animal that you're trying to like keep safe or keep away from ruining the pieces that you're playing with. Plus like, clean up as quick at someone else's house. Right? You just like put everything away and then you're done. Instead of, at home, you find eight more things to do.

L: Yes, and I find, like with my kids too, going to other places, a lot of times, kids are more excited to clean up. It feels more part of the process versus at home where it almost feels more of a chore.

M: Yeah.

L: And so we really emphasize letting your kids help clean up in our space. We even have a little reward chart. If they clean up three different visits, they have a treasure box so we're encouraging that. Which is another good learning tool for them to start doing that at home.

M: Mm hmm. I need to get one of those little hand brooms and dustpans because that was awesome to see kids just grab it and clean up. If you were to get out a full broom, they can't control it.

L: . For sure we're definitely hoping to try to teach some life skills as well and it's just kind of fun when they're doing it with friends in our space versus doing it at home.

M: Yeah, definitely.

HOW TO START SENSORY PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS

So you had mentioned that Sunny Day Studio is designed for ages 18 months to 6 years old. But if you were going to do sensory play at home, what would be a stepping stone into it or what would you do with babies to kind of warm them up to it?

L: Yeah, so the reason we recommend 18 months in our space is because we do have a lot of small pieces and we know, before then, a lot of children are putting things in their mouth. But, at home, a good resource would be searching “taste safe” on Pinterest. There are so many different taste safe things, like I've seen an activity where they're using chocolate pudding as mud. Things that we can't really do in our space just for cleanliness purposes. That would be a great one for home where your kids can still get that experience of touching different textures and you know, trying different things out, but it's okay if it goes in their mouth. So that would be like a great thing to look up for home, is some taste safe, baby sensory ideas and that kind of preps them like, for when they're ready to come to our space, they already have some experience doing activities.

M: Yeah, taste safe sounds like a buzz word in the biz for sure!

BENEFITS OF SENSORY PLAY

So,one of the people that I have followed on Instagram for years now is Busy Toddler and I know that there's tons and tons of mom, and preschool and kindergarten teacher accounts that rave about sensory bins. And, we talked about life skills with the cleaning up, but what are some of the benefits and actual learning going on?

L: Yeah. So with a lot of different bins, we're very mindful of like what it's helping with, a lot of them are helping with gross motor skills, fine motor skills, sharing. It's really cute to see when kids come in together and they're taking a bin out and they're working TOGETHER to do something. We have little tools that they can use that just really works those muscles in their fingers which is preparing them for when they get older and they're having to use pencils and scissors and different things. We're also really doing a lot of things that are igniting creativity and using their imagination and I feel like a lot of times with kids we really want this structured craft activity, which is not bad, but with that we're giving them direct instructions. Our hope is that they can discover how they want to play and they can use their imagination and choose what to do.

M: One of my favorite things as a mom is just watching what they do and how they play. My youngest is almost two and a half and so he doesn't listen a ton to begin with so giving him any kind of direction doesn’t go very far so I can just watch and see what he does. When we went, he gravitated towards the loose parts bin for quite a while and he just grabbed the same type of purple piece and gave one to me, and gave one to himself, and gave one to my mother-in-law, and just like, we all needed to have our own purple pieces and he would change, he would change which hand they went in and like that's just how he wanted to play. I mean, he picked out ones that match and it was neat.

L: No, that's true, I'm glad that you said that. So we do have a lot of loose parts activities. There’s actually a lot of research on how that's beneficial but if you watch kids playing with different loose parts, for example, we have a loose parts nature play area in our space. So we have a basket of shells, a basket of sticks, a basket of pine cones and seeing a lot of them naturally line things up, sort things, count, or they're learning about colors. So I think it’s about changing OUR mindset. We don’t need to necessarily be sitting down with flashcards, they can learn through playing. It’s really fun to watch them do that with these activities.

M: Yeah, I love that too. And that's a huge thing in education is being able to apply what you're learning to other situations and that's exactly what they're doing.

L: Yes, exactly!

Sunny Day Studio “RULES” FOR PLAY

M: Do you have “rules” or boundaries or guidelines for playing at Sunny Day?

L: So when people come in, we try to give them a brief overview of what we do. So we, obviously, do sensory play, we've got single bins that are really designed for one or two people to play with, and then we also have an art room where they can paint. So, really, I guess our rules per se would just be teaching our kids to clean up after themselves and that's really just so other people can enjoy too. We know, as parents, that that's important. And so just letting them know, hey, if we're done with this activity before we move to the next thing, we're gonna clean it up so the next friend can play with it too. We don't have time limits so when you come to our space, you can stay as long as you want. You don't have to make a reservation. We just ask that whatever your kids are playing with, that they can just pick up that area before moving to the next one.

M: Awesome, I love that.

LINDSAY’S TIPS TO CONTROL THE MESS

What tips if you have any, can you share on containing the mess for people trying out sensory play at home?

L: I would say if messes really give you a lot of stress, just start outside. Bring out a bin and let that be more of an outdoor thing if it's too hard to do in your house. Kids want to be outside anyway. Like, with my kids, I've made a bigger bins that’s like a coffee bin. So they had beans, and scoopers, and then they had little cups and different things and I just put it on our back patio and they just went to town with it and it didn't matter because it wasn’t the living room. It was okay.

If you are going to do it in your house, you can also put down a shower curtain on the floor where it's a little more contained. So there's different ways you can do it where it doesn't have to spill over the floor if that really stresses you out.

M: Thank you for sharing all of that. I think this is going to be so nice for tons of parents who just like, you know, want to do something different or that haven't heard about sensory play before.

WHERE TO FIND MORE ABOUT SUNNY DAY STUDIOS

If someone wants to explore more, where can parents find you online? And where is Sunny Day Studio if they want to check you out?

L: Sunny Day Studios, we are in Clarksville, TN at 1600 Golf Club Lane, pretty close to the Chik-fil-A on Madison Street .

M: Oh yeah, that’s a landmark! haha.

L: Yeah I feel like every mom knows where that is! So we’re just behind there.

You can also find us online at sunnydaystudiostn.com and we’re also on Instagram, and Facebook. Also, inside of our store, we have a children’s boutique: O Hayden Boutique, we sell Thistle Sweet’s Macarons, and we have Native Path Farm’s Sourdough, and we also have Elderberry Syrup from Elderwood. So we do have several local things inside as well.

M: It's almost like a little community in there of other local business, and the boutique is SO cute. I'm sharing their items all the time for clients that are on the lookout for outfits. It's adorable.

Are you having any other events? You just had your Fall Fest, which was a blast. Anything else coming up that you want to share?

L: Yeah, so our First Birthday Bash will be Saturday, December 2. That will be a ticketed event. (TICKETS ON SALE HERE) So we will have a lot of fun things that day. We'll have an Inflate Clarksville bounce house there, we're looking to have a fake snow machine, it's going to have a winter theme and that’s our next ticketed event. And with our ticketed events, we do limit the number because we want everyone to have a good time. We’ve found that that's just a more enjoyable experience for people when it's not overcrowded. So we do really limit the number of tickets and we want to be just a special calming experience versus chaos.

M: Sounds so fun!
Year-round, are you doing the downtown Clarksville Farmers Market?

L: We hope to do a few times. Scheduling was always hard for us because Saturdays we’re open but last this past year we did it two times and I'm hoping next year we can do a few more times as well. We love the farmers market and we've met so many new families through that. But yes, we hope to be able to pop up there a few times for next season. It’s a great opportunity for kids to play while their parents are shopping.

M: Thank you so much, it’s always so nice to talk to you. And I’ll probably see you later this week at the studio!

I highly recommend checking out Sunny Day Studios if you’re in Clarksville. Since we spoke, I took all THREE of my kids, ages 2, 5, and 8, and they ALL had a great time. Plus, if your kids are older than 6, they are FREE!

What do you think? Will you be trying out sensory play at home? Let me know how it goes!