Students spend time in my resource room for specially designed instruction in a small group setting throughout the school day. I service students in Special Education Kindergarten through first grade with a range of disabilities, including developmental delays, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Mild Mental Disabilities, Specific Learning Disabilities and Sensory Processing Disorders. Many students are also are ELL/ESL with first languages including Spanish and Russian.
Each year we continue to see a rise in the number of students whose families have immigrated or received refugee status from countries in Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Many of my students come from families whose incomes fall below the national poverty line. Their families struggle to provide basic needs and purchasing educational materials is not within their budget. For many of these children school is the first time they have been exposed to reading, math and writing. My students struggle in areas of basic reading, reading comprehension, math computation and reasoning and social and adaptive skills.
My Project
Students entering Kindergarten are meeting new peers for the first time. These new experiences can present a challenge. The experience can be more challenging for students with sensory integration concerns. When in the resource room the challenged can seem less noticable but when in the general education classroom where seat cushions and alternative seating is increasingly utilized it can make children who use them feel "different" or singled out
At the beginning of each school year, Kindergarten students learn about how they are different from each other.
They learn that some of their peers require seats or cushions to help them when we sit at carpet, others may make noises or get up and move around. As a teacher who teaches specifically children with special needs I often have to engage students in discussions about differences, acceptance, boundaries and tools we use to be our most successful.
We will use this rug and cushions as tools to teach students that we accept each person just the way he or she is made and we do not treat classmates different because of the tools they use or the items they need to be successful. We respect them, their personal space and the boundaries they have set.
The rug will assist students with accepting spacial boundaries during movement and sitting activities while the alternative seats will help them remain in their work areas for an extended time while receiving the sensory input they require. The lap blanket will engage students while again fulfilling sensory input needs.
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