Sensory Room Website

Oh my goodness - I have a treat for you. I know that many of you use Sensory rooms or sensory items for your students or children with autism or other spectrum disorders. Well, here is a great website that you could use in your classroom or in home schooling. It is called The Sensory World.

You just have to go to the site and look around in order to understand everything it has on the site. Using the mouse you can visit room in the House - a music room and kitchen and a sensory room. In looking around it also has a Money manager that would be a wonderful way of teaching basic real life money skills to our older students. The sensory room would be great for a group sensory activity using a Smart board (interactive white board).

The site also has a 5 page printable guide that I would suggest you print to help you get the most from the site.

This is a great site and kudos to the United Kingdom's Elizabeth Fitz Roy charity. The site was developed for students with learning disabilities.

Let's Cook

One of the best ways to teach our students life skills is to get in the kitchen and cook.

Kids Cooking.com has a great list of 13 Non-reader recipes (scroll down the page). These recipes have photos of step-by-step directions on how to cook each item.

Here is another group of visual recipes. These are made with picture symbols.

Visual Recipes.com is a site that you have to register for - but it is free (remember I'm thrifty). Check it out. It has a huge group of recipes with photos.

Look at this great site! Mrs. Brown's classroom has not only a group of recipes but stories that go with them. It is a site for cognitively disabled students.

Making Learning Fun is really cute. It has a huge number of visual recipes and lots of other things too. Take time to look around.

Sensory Gardening

You know I like to think outside the box and I love to use the Creative arts. I want our students to experience lots of things - sights, sounds, tastes and smells. I also want them to develop a love for something that will become a lifelong passion and leisure activity - something more appropriate than watching Barney videos over and over. They need to experience new things before they can develop new passions...so why not gardening?

I'm going to provide just a few resources for information about Sensory Gardening. It is a garden with plantings that provide input for all of a child's senses. Very interesting.

So here are a few things I want you to check out:

Sensory Gardens

Sensory Gardens layout

Gardening Coloring Sheets & More color sheets & even
More Coloring Sheets

You doing research? Here is a thesis on Theapeutic sensory gardens for students with autism. Great way to gather resources/research for valididating a grant request. The research is already done for you.

Here is a site that describes each of the sense and things to do.

Here is a grant that you could watch for when it opens again for 2010. From the National Gardening Association.....go for it!

I love to garden - I don't have time but I will soon. I love this site - KidsGardening. I've used it for years & they also used to give grants - so watch for them. I know we are talking about Sensory Gardens but what about gardening in general - a great way to create a lifelong leisure activity for your students with autism.

Aquatic Therapy and Autism

Summer is coming and so is swimming! Sometimes though, a combination of swimming and autism may be dangerous and difficult to manage.

Here is a good article that talks about using Aquatic Therapy as a Recreational activity. There are several safety concerns that one must take into account when using water activities with students on the autism spectrum:

• The student's sense of danger is skewed or nonexistent.
• Sensory issues may be under or over stimulated and the water temperature may discourage the student from entering the water
• Due to the significance of receptive language and the ability of the child to follow verbal direction - make sure to closely supervise
• Some students have unusual behaviors such as licking and may swallow an inordinate amount of chlorinated or salt water
• Due to unusual fears, some children may not enter the water at all

Some recommendations and resources:

• If you are making a trip to the beach consider a tracking wrist band. ION kids has one that alerts parents when children get too far away. It looks like a watch and is water resistent.
• Here is another tracking device that is available from a common discount store.
• Try the Tatoo set that many are using for the students with autism.
• Be careful with the bathing suit - try a tight t-shirt to help with the temperature shock of the water

I want you to help your child enjoy the summer and enjoy the water. What I do not want to happen is this.......so be careful around the water.

Spiderman, Music and Autism?

How can you go wrong with Spiderman and Music? Do you have a student or a child who would do anything for Spiderman? I know there is a fine line between encouraging the restricted interest and using that interest to enhance progress in other areas.

Well look at this site. This is not a group of freebies but is a great place to order Personalized Musical songs about spiderman. What a great reinforcer!

There are also Books and CD's on Superman/ Wonderwoman. Batman, Garfield, etc.

There are even samples of Personalized Barney songs.

Online Art Gallery

Have you ever considered an online art gallery to display the student's art work? Check out the Kids Tate site. It has an online site that you can create the cutest online gallery to enhance your use of creative arts in the classroom.

Our students and their parents would love to view the children's art work online. Use this to educate others about the talents and gifts our students have. Could you also use this as a fundraiser? or use it with your Autism Awareness activities?

Check it out and use it creatively!

Coloring!

All children love to color... in fact I love to color! There are many of our students on the spectrum who also love to color - particularly those who are functioning at the higher end of the spectrum. I have had many experiences with students living with Asperger's syndrome who love the visual detail of geometric coloring pages.



Check out this site: Dover Publications. They have several freebie coloring pages - many of which would be great for teaching leisure activities, as reinforcement activities, or as a fine motor activity. Several are also geometric shapes but they have several other types of pages.

Here are a few examples:





There is also a free email service you can sign up for - you will receive free coloring pages.


You may find that the students enjoy the use of colored pencils more than crayons. You can certainly also use these for painting.