How to Design a Sensory Needs Classroom for Early Childhood Special Education Students
By: Lindsay Cieri
Have you ever thought about what’s the first thing you do when you move into a house or an apartment? First, you probably take the time to design and decorate; to make this new space “home”. You hang artwork, pictures, or display trinkets that are meaningful around your new space. You may paint your rooms with colors that reflect your personality or evoke a sense of emotion. You search for the perfect piece of furniture to make your spaces meet your needs, your aesthetics, and to feel cozy. You find objects, you add color, texture, light, and sound to best suit what makes you feel productive, calm, and happy.
This is exactly what you can do to make your classroom meet the sensory needs of every child, and it’s specially helpful for your students with disabilities. To support learning and engagement, you can approach its design like you would when setting up a new home. In this “home” the students are the occupants and our goal, as teachers, is to meet their various learning and sensory needs.
Here are some ideas on how you can use the five senses to design your classrooms and make your students feel like home, while celebrating and supporting all of them.
Questions to keep in mind:
What do you want your students to see when they enter the classroom?
What images can you provide the students to foster their comfortability and better connect them to the learning material?
Color:
If you are able to paint your classroom, studies show shades of blue and green can have a calming impact, especially on students who have sensory needs.
If you are not allowed to paint your classroom, try adding some removable wallpaper, decals, or artwork that have a calming effect.
Lighting:
Fluorescent lights can have negative impacts on students with sensory needs and some students with ASD may have a hypersensitivity to light.
Try including lamps, fairy lights or dim lighting in the classroom.
Shut off fluorescent lights at different points throughout the day and utilize sources of natural light (if possible,) or lamps.
Nature:
Include natural plants for a natural element (and have your students take care of them as a classroom assistant)
Add some non-toxic artificial plants to your classroom walls.
Visuals & Labeling:
Although it is important to create a visually interesting classroom space, it is important not to overload the classroom walls with decor.
Create your own classroom artwork using dollar store or thrifted frames and adding images of your choosing. Maybe you have a passion for photography, and you can print some of your own inspiring images of flowers or natural scenery for your classroom.
Frame images that are based on your students’ interests.
Create a classroom “family tree” with pictures of your students and their families (this also allows the students to feel connected to their families throughout the day).
Create a “Gallery Wall” of student artwork.
Use the student’s names in text and their pictures on cubbies.
Label all toys, games, and classroom areas with text and pictures to increase independence and aid in seamless transitions.
Use visual schedules.
There are endless ways to use tactile elements in the classroom!
Provide sensory bins, and other sensory materials through the day and integrate them into lesson planning.
Create a sensory board or wall in the classroom.
Offer a variety of adapted classroom seating (such as bumpy seat cushions and weighted lap pads).
Include classroom materials with different textures.
Don’t limit the students to writing with just pencils, markers, or crayons, try using sand, paint, and shaving cream for a tactile experience.
Consider including opportunities to allow your students to experience different foods and textures.
Did you know that the texture of some snacks may aid some of your students in their focus, learning, and self-regulation based on their sensory needs? Crunchy snacks such as vegetable chips and chewy snacks such as granola bars offer input for sensory seeking students. Snacks like bananas may have a calming effect.
Include cooking activities to expand their palettes, tolerance of various textures and foods, and self-help skills.
Scents are powerful. Peppermint and orange are known to have energizing effects, while lavender and chamomile are known for their calming properties. It is important to consider the impact of scent on your students if they are known to be hypersensitive or hyposensitive to scent.
Consider using a diffuser for essential oils in the classroom.
Infuse essential oils into dough or sensory bins materials, like rice.
Provide students with scented (or unscented) lotion as part of sensory activities.
Use scented markers and stickers during the day.
Some of your students may be sensitive to sound. They can start their day off right with upbeat yet calming music (at a lower volume.)
Use music to aid students in transitions throughout the day so they know what to expect next.
Use timers for transitions.
Provide students with headphones if they have increased sensitivity to sound.
Provide students with headphones with music playing for self-regulation purposes.
Offer a quiet space in the classroom.
The classroom environment is just as important to our student’s success and comfortability. Using the five senses can help educators create a second home for their students where they feel ready to learn and engage with the materials and lessons more effectively!
Connect with us at VMNY for a customized plan to solve your classroom design concerns and barriers.
