Sensory Areas: Homes

So many skills can be taught through any theme-based activity.  In this post about "homes" you will find multi-sensory ideas for helping children who are blind or visually impaired to develop tactile, auditory, visual skills, as well literacy and numeracy.

Tactile

• Tactile/visual book to represent different types of home

• Caravan, tent, house

• Make Duplo house, play with brick shapes, use different textures for different bricks, use a variety of sizes. 

• Feel fabrics of curtains, carpet, bedding, voile, towels from a home.

• Make home area for children to explore, full of soft textures found in a home.  

• Play with a key item from each room of the house – create objects of reference.

• Make tent with laundry maiden for children to play in. Use small camping tent, the ones used on the beach to create shade. 

• Play and explore the items you would have in a tent – sleeping bag, enamel pots and pans. 
• Feel food cooked at home, feel food cooked when living in a tent – sausages, cold beans.
• Make a tactile book to represent the key item from each room of the child’s house. 
• Make rabbit hole in sand pit, stroke real rabbit, feel length of rabbit’s ears, whiskers.
• Make tactile book with rabbit’s furry ears, string or fishing line for whiskers, a sock/woolly hat for child to put hand in and pull out small toy rabbit. 

  

• Bring fish bowl in with fish swimming in.
• Give child real fish to feel, shape of bowl, put hands in cold water. 
• Make different shaped and sizes of fish 
• Make fluorescent fish shapes to dangle from black umbrella, make mobile with fish. 
• Bird’s nest - make nest with straw and twigs for children to feel. Listen to the birds singing. 
• Use feathers or feather duster to stroke child’s hand.
• Make a gigantic collage of a spider’s web using string, cord, thread, wool, wikki stix. Use pom pom with pipe cleaners for legs, dangle from string, elastic, attached to a mobile.

Visual

• Above, plus photographs of different types of homes. 

Sound

• Favourite music played at home. 
• Sound of door bell at home
• Specific sound made in each room at home
• Kitchen sound of pans clattering
• Bathroom – taps running, water splashing, toilet flushing
• Sitting room –  noise of TV 
• Garden – Birds singing
• Bedroom – musical toy, musical mobile, computer game (brother/sister’s room)
• Hammering wooden pegs into holes.
• Clattering enamel plate with metal spoon. 

Taste

• Favorite food eaten at home/food eaten when camping – sausages, beans.

Smell

• Smell of favorite food/smell food eaten when camping – e.g. sausages, beans
• Smell for each room or key room for child in house, scent of bubble bath, washing powder, room freshener.

Literacy

Incy Wincy Spider

Numeracy

• Feel shapes of fish
• Feel shape of gold fish bowl. 
• Feel shape of bricks
• Feel shapes similar to shapes of tent, triangle front, rectangular sides. 
• Feel things with straight edges, curves. 
• Match items used in the kitchen, cup with saucer, knife with fork.
• Put different textures and shapes of bricks in groups.