On Thursday afternoon, Wapakoneta Elementary School teachers got the chance to see everything the new sensory room has to offer.
The room is filled with many objects, such as a ball pit, devices that can weigh kids down, which calms them, a swing, rice to be played with and many other objects. Everything is color coated to show teachers and volunteers who will be working in the room what will help students in terms of different sensations. It is new to the school this year.
One of the teachers was kindergarten intervention specialist Michelle Sudman, who has had the opportunity to work with kids in the sensory room already. The room offers students the ideal environment to relax, she said.
“It gives them a nice, quiet environment to collect their thoughts and regain their attention and their focus,” she said. “How I use it is, I have a visual timer, and I let them explore for a little bit, and then when the timer goes off, then we need to work.”
She follows this pattern with students and said it really seems to work. She usually brings two kids to the room at a time, Sudman said.
“Sometimes there are other groups of kids in here with other teachers, and that also gives them a time to interact with each other, and so that's a nice, quiet way for them to meet other kids.”
This teaches them social skills, Sudman said.
“They're learning sharing, and they're learning how to say hello and greet each other,” she said. “That's been really nice.”
See the full story in the Friday, Oct. 7 edition of the Wapakoneta Daily News.