Friday 12 April 2013

Making a dark den.


I've been really wanting a dark den or sensory room to work with a little lad in my class who has very limited vision. The classroom is visually busy and I would live to be able to explore what he responded to visually in a less distracting space with more pronounced contrasts.

I have some constraints around the classroom we use. It is a shared space with other groups and there isn't room for a large den. We have to pack up before and after each half day session, often with people waiting for the room, so don't have time to be fiddling around with complex structures and tent poles. I also need it to be big enough for an adult to get into comfortably, probably while carrying their child, and to hold and support a child in there. Nothing I found in the catalogues seemed to meet our criteria so I got exploring on Pinterest. There were a number of hanging tents being used as play spaces that would make a good, easily removable den, so I decided to make my own as a dark den.

I bought a hula hoop, and a few metres of black fabric. (6, I think) This was a bit of a compromise as the really dark, light-stop fabric seemed a bit too stiff and heavy. I went for a more flowing close weave black fabric that made it quite dark inside. Curtain lining was cheap and would make it dark enough, I think, to provide a contrast with light up toys.

For anyone who wants a rough idea how to make one, I cut out a circle, larger than the hoop, cut the circle into quarters so that I could overlap it to make the pointed top. I attached ties that would hold the hoop in place, and then cut the remaining fabric into lengths, allowing for it to hang from the ceiling and touch the ground. I joined the pieces together and gathered them onto the top part.



It worked, but looked a bit dark and scary hanging there so I decorated it with sparkly bunting type shapes around the top, silver fabric to overlap at the entrance and other shapes. The ribbon at the top allows me to get it to the right height of my classroom.

This is the finished project. The lights are really bright inside. I have some very cheap battery powered coloured lights on a string bought from Primark at Christmas, and it is really dark enough for them to stand out.



I added a few loops and cords inside so that I can attach toys, or a white dare to project lights onto. I'm looking forward to trying it out next week.



Lights inside it against the black, showing great contrast for encouraging a child with limited sight to reach out and touch.




The same lights against reflective foil.


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Tuesday 2 April 2013

Pay attention.

I've been thinking a lot about the children in my group who bash at toys, rather than explore them carefully, and who do a lot of throwing.
How can we move them on?
Mostly these children are very young, 3 at most, and at the crawling, pulling to standing stage of development. Throwing serves a purpose at the beginning of this stage, as babies discover object permanence, watch a toy move out of view and then discover it again. Their eyes are beginning to focus more on distant objects, and they are learning to track moving objects too. Throwing toys provides an incentive to crawl to retrieve them. But I'm noticing some children seem a little stuck at this phase and it is interfering with their ability to explore toys in other ways. Some families report feeling that they become disheartened about offering toys to their little ones, as they just get slung.
So what can we do?
First of all, I think removing anything that present a real danger is important. The space needs to be uncluttered. I find the posting toys are often thrown, quite possibly to avoid having to do them. So we've cut down on toys with little sling-able parts. We put less out, but have things ready to hand.
We do have light balls and baskets for catching so that we can turn throwing into turn taking games. Playing "ready steady go! " and making a fun drama of rolling or throwing the ball, or getting ready to catch, seems to help make this more fun than slinging toys. We use light up balls, balls with a bell or rattle inside, balls with holes to grip, bean bags, larger balls.
In the music corner we have a few drums and we encourage the parents to play these with their child, and try to get a turn taking game going. One loud bang, lots of quiet taps, my go, your go, Drumming with finger tips, using a flat hand. This seems to help the child move on from random banging to a bit more control.
I think another factor is that toys like posting boxes are often seen as an important step, introduced before the child has developed an interest in poking things into small holes (anyone who has lived with a toddler in the house will know this is a distinct phase where the child is passionate about poking things into small spaces, especially car keys). The child who just isn't aware of those possibilities yet isn't going to be interested in posting boxes and throwing the shapes seems like much more fun.
I have a theory that alongside this, we need to work on their ability to look, watch and pay attention to detail.
I'm introducing more toys that encourage looking and watching. We have always used bubbles, blowing them the stopping, waiting while the child makes eye contact, signs, says or in some other way indicates that they want more. We also use blowing up a balloon and letting it go. Both of these activities encourage looking at our faces, waiting, anticipating, and start an interaction between the adult and child. Party blowers appeal to some children and encourage them to watch our faces, and wait.




Moving away from our faces to shared interest in a toy , we use Jack in a box, and the pop up toys on sticks. These can be brought up by our face to get attention, encourage that shared looking and moved so that the child is switching attention between the person and the toy. Reactions from the adult can build up the interest and excitement. Balloon pumps, spinning tops, pop up pets can be used at this stage, encouraging the children to watch wait for the toy to do it's thing.
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Zig zag car or ball tracks are also useful if used by an adult with the child. We have a number of these. At the right stage of development, children love watching the car or ball roll down. After watching it for a while, they are motivated to try to put the ball in the hole themselves, or the car on the track. They are already aware this is more fun than throwing it.




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Tuff spot and messy play.

A big feature in my classroom, is the tuff spot, or builder's tray. This is a black shallow tray that can be bought from school and nursery supplies or for under £20 from B&Q. The education supplies also sell stands, but we use ours on the floor as few of my class are walking.




On the floor it can also be used to encourage reaching from sitting or kneeling positions, and is great for the kids who want to totally immerse themselves.
On the other hand, the stand would be useful if we wanted to discourage too much immersion.
I try to put something different in it every couple of weeks, so that the children have chance to explorers more than once, but not so much of the same thing that they get bored. We have a few favourite tuff spot activities that we use a lot. Many nurseries use them to create imaginative play environments, like underwater scenes, or use items that represent a story. My class are so young that they are not really at that stage of development yet, and I really have to be aware of the likelihood of them putting bits in their mouths, so I am a bit limited by safety considerations.
However, I love the tuff spot. The children greet it with excitement and curiosity. It often absorbs them for quite long periods, and parents tend to enjoy it too. Filling containers is a favourite activity, so I collect different ones, bright colours, different sizes, some with handles, some metal to add sound and reflections. They really practice all kinds of physical skills here as they fill and empty containers, try different tools, move around and reach out across the play area. It's a sociable activity, as the children tend to wander over to the tuff spot to see what others are doing, and lots of exploration goes on as they investigate it, and the tools or toys in it.




This was spaghetti, coloured to make it more eye catching. There's a selection of different bowls and spoons and tongs to pick it up. Great for pretend cooking, for scooping and tipping, developing control using tongs. Tongs were great with this, and chopsticks were fun, too.
Playing with this gives you such an opportunity for conversation, offering choices "in here or in there?" Vocabulary around size, full and empty, colour, how can we pick it up?
Dry pasta shapes are a favourite. I haven't tried colouring them, although I think it can be done. They are great because they are so noisy, they don't make much mess, and while they aren't enticing to eat, they won't harm the child who tries. They are really popular when we put them out with bowls and spoons but we also use plastic bottles to encourage posting, saucepans for play cooking, soft toys for pretend tea parties.
Oats are interesting for pouring, silky to touch, go through funnels and slatted spoons. We have done a 3 bears theme with big and small bowls, teddies and spoons. Don't wear black clothes though!
Coloured rice looks great. We started ours in stripes and let the children mix it up. Rakes, cardboard tubes, funnels, plastic bottles, especially clear ones all work well with this. It was really popular. One child just loved run in it through her fingers. another lay in it and waved her arms as if swimming or making snow angels. most of he others filled the bowls, fed toy animals, and stirred saucepans. The rice keeps so can be used again and again.




At the end of the session, it looked like this!




Shredded paper, great with tongs, for building piles, hiding toys, throwing and catching. You can use different colours for different themes. We found red and blue for the jubilee and Olympics.
Cotton wool can be great with a snow theme, interesting to touch and throw, easy to clean up. Works well with containers with compartments like the inside of a chocolate box for early number work.
Christmas tinsel, with some unbreakable tree ornaments hidden inside. I chose things that the children would recognise, stars, Santa, animals, to encourage naming and searching.
This is my Easter theme. Green shredded packing stuff from the pound shop with a cheeping chick, fabric flowers and those eggs to fill. I've taped some eggs together having put rice, or pasta inside to make different sounds. I also bought cat toys from the pound shop to make an interesting rattle, and cheap toys with lights in that come on when you shake them, and took the lights out to go in a couple of my eggs. I think this will look appealing and encourage the children to shake and investigate to explore what the eggs
do.








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This blog.

I've started writing this blog as a tool to help me in my job. I am really fortunate to be teaching a small group of children with significant special needs, and disabilities. It is fascinating working out ways to help them develop, and huge fun turning that into playful activities that they will really enjoy, and I think, if I write down some of the things that occur to me and the things I mull over it will help me develop my ideas and get better at what I am doing.

I can't put pictures up of the children, except this one which has appeared in the local newspaper and on their website. This is my previous class. In the autumn 2012 all 5 classes moved to new locations, as as that happened I moved to a new group slightly nearer to home. This was our open day, so this posed shot has all of us staff, managers and the local Mayor lined up along the back, with our lovely families in the front. It features one of our favourite pieces of equipment, the tuff spot.








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