I am a speech therapist in a K-5th grade elementary school. Throughout my day, I work with a different groups of students with varying abilities every 30 minutes. My activities and materials need to be easy to access and engaging for my students.
I work with 2nd through 5th grade students with a wide variety of disabilities ranging from mild articulation errors to severe autism.
I am looking to add a sensory area with more hands-on activities for my students with autism, so I can better meet their learning needs. By creating a carpeted area with pillows and more hands-on activities, I can provide a flexible learning environment.
My Project
The funding of this project will allow me to create a carpeted corner of my room where students can sit on the floor instead of at the traditional table. This will allow more play-based learning for my more severely impacted students. This area will have floor pillows as well as hands-on materials such as sensory noodles, toy animals and photo library cards that can be hidden in the sensory noodles to facilitate vocabulary. Other hands-on learning activities like Pop & Match Vocabulary Games, Category Sorting Ready-To-Go Learning and the Positional Words Resource Box will hold the interest of these students while helping them to develop necessary language skills. The Oral Language & Vocabulary School Readiness Teaching Kit has magnetic posters for students to complete matching and sorting activities. Additionally, the playing card holders will help my students hold cards easier for games such as go fish.
This project will help me better meet the needs of my diverse students who have trouble meeting expectations in a traditional classroom setting.
I believe this project will help me to be more flexible in the location of therapy services within my room, and provide that much needed hands-on piece to ensure the most successful outcomes. By having more activities that include manipulatives will allow students to match, sort, locate, and learn while having fun!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Strebel and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
