Outreach Sensory Story Time: Fall Open House

 

 

We were so excited to visit the Wing Lake Developmental Center for our first visit since the "before times!" Our new Assistant DH, Lauren, and I updated a previous story time plan from 3 years ago and presented this sensory story time for Wing Lake's Fall Open House in late October, and we are thrilled to have monthly visits scheduled there in the coming months. 

Here's the plan:

1. Hello (Talk about the visual schedule)

2. Talk about theme: "Today we are having fun with things that we experience in the fall! What do you like about fall? (Colorful leaves, apples and cider mills, Halloween) For their Fall Open House, students and their families were invited to wear costumes for some Halloween activities throughout the evening. So we also talked about our costumes and what we find around Halloween time (scarecrows, pumpkins, trick or treaters).

3. Story: Scarecrow, Scarecrow, What Do You See? by Lisa Erwin, SLP

This is an adapted book with interactive images. I enlarged this book and interactive image pieces to poster-size, looped ring clips through the top and attached it to our portable easel to flip through.

(source: My Speech Tools)

4. Flannel rhyme: Apples Juicy, Apples Round (tune: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

In addition to putting flannel apples in red, green, and yellow on our board, Lauren and I also brought in red, green, and yellow apples to pass around for students and their families to see, feel, and smell.

Apples juicy, apples round,

On the tree or on the ground.

Apples yellow, green, and red,

Give us pie and juice and bread.

Apples juicy, apples sweet, 

Apples are so good to eat!

(source: unknown)

5. Sensory Story: Full of Fall by April Pulley Sayre

Another fantastic picture book from Sayre with beautiful photograph illustrations of outdoor fall scenes and simple narrative. We projected the eBook version on a large screen for better visual accessibility and also passed around different colorful leaves, twigs, and bark to better experience the story and illustrations with our senses of sight, touch (the different textures of the leaves and bark), smell, and hearing (the crinkle of the leaves).

6. Goodbye Song: "If You're a Monster and You Know It" (tune: If You're Happy and You Know It)

If you're a monster and you know it,

wave your arms.

If you're a monster and you know it,

wave your arms.

If you're a monster and you know it,

then your arms will surely show it.

If you're a monster and you know it,

wave your arms.

Additional verses: show your teeth, roar out loud

(source: preschooleducation.com)

7. Craft activity: Apple Trees (blue construction paper, green circle, strip of brown construction paper, glue sticks, and bingo dauber markers)

Outreach: "Animals in the Winter"

Ed and I visited one of our outreach favorites last week! We love bringing our multi-sensory story time programs to the students at the Wing Lake Developmental Center, a year-round school that serves students, ages 3 - 26 years, in Oakland County with severe cognitive impairments (SCI) and severe multiple impairments (SXI). We try to provide as many sensory experiences as we can, so students with visual disabilities, motor difficulties, and other developmental disabilities can truly engage with the story time.

This visit focused on what animals do in the winter time. We chose to read Kate Messner's Over and Under the Snow, a picture book with so many wonderful sensory opportunities!

Here's our plan:

1. Hello (Talk about our picture schedule)

2. Talk about our theme: Animals in the Winter

"Today we are learning about what animals do in the winter time. What do you do in the winter? Do you like the cold? Snow? What do you like to eat when it is cold outside? Do you feel more sleepy, like some animals do?

3. Mindfulness exercise: "(Hibernating) Bear Breath"

Close your eyes and imagine you are a bear going inside your cave to get ready to sleep all winter.

Take a nice, deep breath in for 5 seconds (1,2,3,4,5) and then hold for 3 seconds (1,2,3).

Now breathe out for a count of five seconds (1,2,3,4,5) and then hold for 3 seconds (1,2,3).

Let's repeat.

Now open your eyes and notice how relaxed you feel, like that sleepy bear.

(source: Yoga Pretzels)

4. "(Where is) Sleepy Bear?"

Use two hands or two fingers and sing to tune of "Where is Thumbkin?"

Where is bear? Where is bear?

Here I am. Here I am.

How are you this winter?

Very tired, thank you.

Go to sleep. Go to sleep.

Say "Wake up bear!" and repeat

(source: Preschool Education)

5. Story with sensory experiences: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner

Projecting this story on the big screen, which is available in eBook format on OverDrive, helps our large groups to see the story better. We can also be hands-free to read and describe the illustrations while bringing all of our sensory experiences around to each student, with the help of teachers and aides in the room:

Page spread with owl and shrew

Rattling leftover leaves (rustling leaves in bags for each student to hear)

Sound of great horned owl (make owl sounds with students)

Tiny shrew following tunnel along the moss... (lift-the-flap touch/feel box covered in white flannel with moss and shrew/mole puppet inside for each student to see, touch, feel)

Page with deer mice under the snow

Mice cuddling up against the cold in a nest of feathers and fur (small baskets lined with "furry fabric" and feathers, with small mouse finger puppet to touch/feel)

Page with snowshoe hare under tree

Snowshoe hare smoothing her fur (pieces of white artificial "fur" to touch/feel)

Page with two beavers under the snow

Beavers gnawing on aspen bark (pieces of tree bark to touch/feel and smell)

Page spread with fox leaping over the snow

He heard a scritch-scritch-scratching along underneath (rustling cups of pea gravel around the students so they can hear the little mouse under the snow)

Page spread with full moon

A full moon lights my path to supper... (dimming the lights and shining bright daylight lamp to shine the "moonlight" for everyone to experience)

Page spread with bear under the snow and cross country skiing parent and child coming upon a bonfire over the snow with hot cocoa

(cups of hot cocoa brought near each student to smell the delicious aroma)

Page spread with feathery-soft snow flakes falling

(bowls of artificial snow brought to each student to touch/feel)

6. Song: "Sprinkle, Sprinkle, Little Snow" with ASL sign for snow

tune: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Sprinkle, sprinkle, little snow

falling down on us below.

Small and white and powdery,

such a joy for all to see.

Sprinkle, sprinkle, little snow

falling down on us below.

(source: Preschool Education)

7. Sensory activity: "Animals in winter" sensory bags 

We had some of our volunteers pre-draw the outline of a tree and the ground level on gallon-size ziplock bags and use our di-cut machine to cut out owl, squirrel, and mouse shapes from foam. We gave each student one of these bags along with 3 scoops of our artificial snow, and then we added the animal shapes. Teachers and aides helped us to close up the bags so students could "smoooosh" the snow inside and move the animals around over and under the snow. We talked about which animals from the story (mice, squirrel) go over and under the snow and which animals stay above the snow (owl).

Outreach: STEM Sensory Story Time at the Science Center

I was invited to be an advisor on the Super Spark accessibility committee at the Michigan Science Center last year. I volunteered as a guide during one of the Super Spark Special Needs Awareness Weekends and later met with museum staff and local disability advocacy group leaders to consult on ways to make the museum more accessible and welcoming to families of all ages with disabilities. Check out their accessibility page:http://www.mi-sci.org/accessibility/. They also offer visitors with sensory sensitivities a color-coded sensory map, indicating areas with especially loud sounds and bright, flashing lights. The museum offers accessible days geared to families with special needs one Sunday a month and accessible field trip days for special education groups the second Tuesday of the month. A couple months ago, Ed and I were invited to present a STEM-themed multi-sensory story time to a group of students with various learning disabilities in grades 4 - 6 on one of the field trip days. We went with an Engineering & Inventions theme to go along with what they were learning that day.

Here's the plan:

1. Hello -- "Today we are talking about engineering and inventions. Have you ever built something? What is your favorite invention?"

2. Mindfulness exercise: "Balloon breaths"  -- holding our imaginary balloon, take deep breaths and blow up your balloon until it's "so full," then release it (repeat).

3. Activity rhyme: "Building a Skyscraper"

Brick by brick

by brick by brick.

My building's so high

it's scraping the sky.

(place fists one on top of the other, going higher each time)

Brick by brick

by brick by brick.

My building will sway

when the wind blows this way.

(sway left, then right)

Brick by brick 

by brick by brick.

Now I'm ready to stop 

and a flag goes on top.

(open one fist and wave left and right)

(Source: Reedy, Polly 1001 Rhymes & Fingerplays)

4. Story: Dreaming Up: a Celebration of Building by Christy Hale

We scanned and projected this story on their big screen for this large group and added sensory experiences from the story -- touching water and clay (like the village in Egypt made from the four basic elements of earth, water, sun, and air), inviting a few students up to make a fort with blankets and chairs (similar to the design of the Yoyogi National Stadium in Japan), building with Legos (to look like the housing complex in Montreal, Canada), and passing around paper tubes (imagining a whole school made from larger, heavier versions like the temporary paper tube school in China).

5. Interactive flannel activity: Building with flannel shapes

We kept the building theme going, inspired by the book Moving Blocks by Yusuke Yonezu and a Flannel Friday post from Storytime Katie and Mel's Desk. 

We invited volunteers up to design a car and a rocket ship with our flannel shapes. Here's the rocket ship.

6. Story: Imaginative Inventions by Charise Mericle Harper

We chose a few of the invention spreads in the book that we thought the students might really enjoy and added some fun sensory experiences: 

1. potato chips (We offered everyone a chip to taste of course!)

2. frisbee (The very large theater was a great space to throw and catch the frisbee with a few volunteers.) 

3. doughnut (We didn't taste, but smelled the wonderful cinnamon aroma!)

4. flat-bottomed paper bag (Kids passed around a paper grocery bag from today's grocery store.)

5. chewing gum (Yes -- everyone got a piece of gum to chew. This was a favorite!)

7. Goodbye song: "The Inventor Song"

Oh it took Bell to make the telephone ring,

And it took Edison to light up our way.

It took Robert Fulton in a steamboat,

to go chug-chug-chugging down the bay.

Otis made the elevator go up,

McCormick's reaper reaped the rye.

So when you're spelling the word inventor

don't forget to dot the I!

Richard Hoe improved the printing press,

so we could get the news.

Charles Goodyear made the rubber

for the heels upon our shoes.

So if you talk about a new invention.

Incidentally don't forget to mention...

That it took Morse to make the telegraph hum

and it took Henry Ford to make an auto 

so that folks could go and take a drive.

Howe knew how to make a sewing machine.

The Wrights learned the right way to fly.

So when you're spelling the word inventor

don't forget to dot the I!

(adapted from classic school song)

We received so much positive feedback from the teachers the next day. I'm not sure who had more fun though - the students or us?!