Sensory Activities for Children in a Self Contained Classroom

Sensory processing, the processing of all input from the senses, is accomplished by all people on a constant, lifelong basis. The brain must process the input from vision, smell, taste, hearing and movement. Injury, illness or disorders can cause problems in understanding personal space and severely affect a person's ability to self-calm, weed out extraneous noise and distractions or balance. The result of these deficits is disruptive and difficult behavior, inability to sit still, focus, learn or interact properly with others. Sensory activities help with these issues and teach the affected child proper adaptive responses. Sensory activities in self-contained classrooms can be general for the entire class, specific to an individual or both.

Learning Activities

• There's a vast number of sensory activities for children in self-contained classrooms to learn ways to cope with their sensory processing deficits. While children without sensory problems adapt to changes in the environment fairly naturally, children with sensory processing disorders must learn from repetition and stimulation. Finger painting, clay and sand activities are excellent tactile activities. For vestibular help try swinging, scooting boards, hammocks, bean bag chairs and rockers. Cooking and trying new foods can help with the oral defensiveness, which often prevents these children from eating healthy diets.

Environmental and Visual

• Cushioned mats are good for overactive kids who need more pressure.

  Rearranging the classroom and adding visual cues helps immensely. Try carpet squares for floor activities to give a visual and tactile reminder of individual space. A picture schedule helps the children focus on what they should be doing and when. Arrange the room into specific areas for specific activities. Some kids find it helpful to have a work area with short walls or shelves on three sides of the workspace. An area for a child to retreat to when overwhelmed is essential. This area should be quiet, with floor pillows, rocking chair, bean bags or other comfortable accessories. Put these in a pop-up tent if possible, or simply drape a blanket or scarves overhead to block out some of the light. Consider lighting, temperature and noise as well.

Behavioral

• Stability balls, in varying sizes, can be used in many ways.

  Children with sensory processing problems need help to get through their day. Their seeming bad behavior is not intentional. Help them to cope by preparing them for changes and transitions from one activity to another. Give breaks as needed. Some kids need a short break or a small reward after only five minutes of working. Some kids do better if they sit on balls while writing or lie on balls while reading or answering questions.

Sensory Diet

• Modeling clay can be part of a sensory diet.

  A sensory diet is a schedule of daily sensory activities customized for a specific child. A variety of sensory activities are interspersed among schoolwork and other activities to give the child the needed sensory input at times that are most beneficial. In a self-contained classroom, there may be several children with sensory diets. The sensory activities may be as simple as brushing the child's arms and legs methodically with a special brush or five minutes of squeezing and shaping modeling clay. At other times, the child may need weighted or pressure activities, such as doing push-ups against a wall, being sandwiched between two cushions, or wearing a weighted vest for a specified amount of time.