I love incorporating sensory bins in my program every chance I get. Studies about sensory tables will show that they are not only beneficial to children with special needs but for all children. My students go crazy when we have sensory activity set up for them and I love to see how amazed and engaged they are with the different types of sensory bins. Here are my top 4 sensory activities I often put out for my students.
For any program to run like a well oiled machine organization is a must! When I first started off in my position I was no where near as organized as I am now. Looking back, I do not know how I survived all those years without using my current system.
My students love math if you could believe it or not. During homework time many will ask for me to create practice problems for them to solve. I started to run out of ideas off the top of my head and started to search the internet for helpful resources. I found a couple of websites that quickly became very popular to my students. Here are the top 5 websites my students use during our after school program. (more…)
My students are always excited to do science experiments, especially because they don’t have the chance to do experiments during the school day. We will often use this book called Candy Experiments when doing a science activity with the students. (more…)
When students are dismissed from school and arrive to your program what is the first thing you notice? Give up? The amount of energy they have! The first category of resources I want to share is for physical activity. These students have been sitting at a desk for most of the day receiving a very little amount of time to get their energy out of their systems. At my program I always try to include activities where my students have to get up and move around. This helps them better focus later on when I need them to regroup and focus on something different. Here are my top 4 resources I use when planning the physical activities for my program.
Being a director for a morning and aftercare program is no easy task. The children always have a ton of energy and it is the responsibility of you and your staff to keep them engaged in activities from the moment they arrive to your program to the moment they leave; sounds easy but it most certainly is not. (more…)