Creating Multi-sensory Environments

Practical Ideas for Teaching and Learning

Christopher Davies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138602892
• eBook ISBN: 9780429890680
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

The revised edition of this highly practical guide to creating and using multi-sensory environments is packed full of ideas for low-cost, easy-to-assemble multi-sensory environments suitable for children of varying ages and abilities. Each creative learning environment is designed to be constructed in a classroom or school hall, encouraging creative thinking and learning, and the development of social and emotional skills. Each environment idea is accompanied by suggestions for use for children with special educational needs.

Key features of the revised edition include:

• Ideas for creating sensory experiences that stimulate all the sensory channels – auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory
• Suggestions for extension or differentiation depending on student capability or time available
• A summary of the theory and background to multi-sensory learning, to allow you to adapt the suggested scenarios according to the needs of individual learners

Although these activities will be of particular value for children with special educational needs or sensory impairments, they are more broadly designed to provide stimulating learning environments, as promoted in the themes and principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage guidance. This is an invaluable resource for teachers and other professionals in education.

Section two

Environments and activities

Part 1

Rooms within rooms

1 Musical Forest

2 Storytelling Sari Tent

3 Undersea World

4 Rainforest Jungle

5 Clothes Rail Screens

6 Laundry

Chapter 1

Musical Forest

The Musical Forest is suitable for either setting up before the students enter or for involving them in helping to set it up.

What is set up as your students enter the room

At the start	The room is filled with a forest of trees suspended from the ceiling. The trees make musical chiming sounds when moved. The forest is made up of a series of cardboard tubes, decorated to look like trees. The Musical Forest makes an intriguing environment to explore during a drama or movement session or as an art installation in its own right.
	An alternative is to completely make the environment during an art session with the students (and staff) before hanging it up to use as an installation or a setting for drama. In which case the students enter to find all the materials (below) laid out.

Different sensory channels
Visual	different coloured materials on the trees; positioning of the trees – spaced out or close together; a light shining from behind the hanging trees – this can be a stage lantern, a simple domestic light or a torch.
Auditory	the sound of the copper pipes striking each other as the tree trunks are moved; the sound will be amplified by the cardboard tubes; small instruments such as bells attached to the trees; other objects that have percussive qualities tied onto trees; birdsong from a CD of sound effects.
Kinaesthetic	different textured fabrics, paper – shiny, matt, etc. – on the trees; crunch of woodchip on the floor.
Olfactory/gustatory	smell of woodchip; scent of any additions to the trees or woodchip, e.g. herbs.

Equipment needed

How much equipment you need will depend on how complex you want to make the environment. If it is being erected for a short time you might decide just to put up a few trees. If it is going to be in situ for a couple of weeks or a whole term, then it may well be worth the time and trouble to create a whole forest.

The basic environment	camouflage net to suspend across the ceiling from which the cardboard tubes can hang; ropes to string across the room; cardboard tubes from inside rolls of carpet – most carpet shops will gladly give these away; copper pipes in a variety of lengths from 10 to 30 cm (plumbers throw lots of these away; however as they move to using more plastic we will need to find alternatives such as aluminium tent pegs); wire; string; sharp, pointed instrument to make holes in the cardboard tubes.
Visual	different coloured paper or torn-up magazine pictures for sticking onto the tubes; shiny foils; cellophane; PVA glue or Pritt Stick for sticking paper to tubes; light source – e.g. stage light, domestic lamp, torch.
Auditory	small percussion instruments – e.g. bells, small rattles; small percussive objects that make a noise when moved – e.g. bunch of keys, plastic bottle with beads in – these can be attached to the trees; CD of sound effects, e.g. birdsong; CD player.
Kinaesthetic	different textured fabrics to stick or tie onto the tubes; strings and other fibrous materials to give the trees a textured bark and leaves; collection of nuts or other hoarded items for squirrel puppet.
Olfactory/gustatory	scent in some form – essential oils or spray perfume; herbs – to put onto the trees; bag of woodchip to scatter beneath the trees to give texture underfoot as well as smell.
For using puppet and/or character	squirrel or other animal puppet; a character: a basic costume – e.g. any one of jacket, cloak, or scarf worn by the person playing the role will give a clear statement of character (a complete costume can be used but is by no means necessary).

Figure 8 Playing a role does not need a full costume. Here a pith helmet and jacket with binoculars create a hunter while a headscarf and waistcoat indicate a pirate.

How to put it together

1. Collect the materials you need from the above list – you may not need all of them – it will depend on what your purpose is.
2. Suspend the camouflage net or ropes to the fixing points above the space (Structures 1, page 11) that is to become the forest.
3. Make four holes at the top of each of the cardboard (carpet or other) tubes at north, south, east and west. See Figure 9.
4. Thread wire through the holes and across the tube from north to south, bend it down onto the side of the tube and gaffer tape the wire into position. Then do the same from east to west so you have a cross of wire across the cardboard tube 10 cm or so from the end. From this the copper pipes, or other metal tubes can be suspended.
5. Using a drill bit suitable for metal, drill two holes at either side of one end of each of the copper pipes. Thread the string through the resulting holes and loop three or four lengths of copper over the crossed wires in place at the end of the cardboard tube so that the copper pipes are suspended inside the cardboard tubes.
6. Thread strong string through the north and south holes in the cardboard tubes to attach to fixtures in the ceiling. Then hang the cardboard tubes, which now become the trees, from the ceiling.

Figure 9 How to suspend copper tubes inside cardboard tube ‘trees’ to make the sounds for the Musical Forest.

How long the tubes are will be partly determined by how high the ceiling is and how they are to be suspended. Long cardboard tubes are quite a weight and will not easily be held by a string stretched across the ceiling. One solution is to use smaller tubes such as insides of rolls of baking foil and thinner copper tubes or aluminium tent pegs for the chime bars.

Ways to make use of the Musical...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword: Lorraine Petersen, CEO of nasen
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• SECTION ONE Getting started
• SECTION TWO Environments and activities
• The author
• Index