Some Exceptional Classroom Activities for Kids with Special Needs

 5 Creative Class Activities for All Kids, Especially Kids with Special Needs

Among the latest figures available, disabled students account for 10% of all school students. Whereas our schooling institution is slowly progressing and making room for every child to master new skills they require, many teachers are still unprepared to deal with all kinds of personality types and skill sets that students possess. Working with these children, fortunately, can be a very wonderful experience if you learn how to handle them correctly, and any parent or teacher can benefit from recognizing how to reach them. Learning a few unique exercises that you can offer to your class, or your house is always a good idea if you want to increase your knowledge and skills as an educator. Here are a few of our personal preferences.

Paint a story

Paint Activities enable the kid to colour his imaginations

Do you have renovated your house, where you may leave some paint samples or their remaining? You may have some watercolors from a stationary outlet. These vibrant colours have unique names such as Karachi Sand, Spring green or poppy red, etc. This is a treasure for parents who want to promote creativity in their children. If you locate a qualified teacher who is skilled with special education students, they will be able to demonstrate how something as easy as this may genuinely stimulate their creativity because it is implemented efficiently in the lesson. They can take the paint samples and look through them, then choose five motives that appeal to them. When they have them, it is up to them to create an engaging story. If they need to practice their handwriting, they can write the story down, or they can simply tell it out audible. In either case, it will encourage them to be more inventive.

Have them play with putty

Hide a Toy Inside to Found

Putty may appear to be a basic toy, but most children adore it, and for good reason: it aids in the development of their sense of touch. Kneading, pulling, rolling, shaping, and squeezing are all enjoyable activities that help youngsters improve their grip by training the tiny muscles in their hands to better hold onto items. You can take it a step further by utilizing special toys like Discover Putty, which hides little objects inside putty and requires youngsters to dig to locate them. You can also use this practice to teach kids new vocabulary and motives because the objects usually have a theme (for example, they are all different types of tiny automobiles). It’s an excellent technique to strengthen motor skills, so grab some putty for your classroom and your pupils will be delighted.

Match objects to each other

Matching the same colour

It is just another basic, well-known game that is essential for children’s mental growth. It can occur in many ways, such as matching letters to objects whose names start with that letter, animals to their habitats, or two halves of the same whole. You can make it as simple as you like, and here’s a quick DIY to get you started. Paint a bunch of wooden sticks in different colours. Break each stick in half and toss them all together on the table. Teach the kids to look for two identical pieces of the same colour and put them in the identical coloured pocket. If they succeed, build a fresh set of sticks with geometrical forms on them, or give them drawings that have been cut in half and must be reassembled.

Hand-Shaped Crafts

Any Object Can Be Obtained

Hand Tracing and Cutting to entertain kids

It is another useful technique that is remarkably attractive to children, and it may be performed at home or in school. All you’ll need is a variety of coloured sheets, pencils, and scissors. Allow your child to sketch their hand on paper with a pencil to help them develop coordination and hand control. They can produce some images of birds or animals. hey can repeat this process several times, and then you can assist them in cutting it. Now that you’ve gathered a collection of their handprints, have them glue them together to form the petals of a large flower. They’ll be overjoyed to be able to create something so lovely! See our paper crafts area for more fantastic creative ideas.

One thing to keep in mind is that these kids should never be underestimated. They normally develop into excellent human beings with patience and affection. If you devote your time and attention to them, they will flourish.

Play a few video games

Some Special Games Are Designed For Kids With Special Needs

Full-time video games are not recommendable for kids. But no kids with disabilities should have to be excluded from all the activities that other children enjoy. Certain video games can help toddlers learn basic skills, but you must choose a game that encourages creativity and discovery for them to benefit. Video games have also been shown to help your child enhance his or her literacy skills (read this post on how video games improve literacy). These video games may get them able to communicate and move their body parts accordingly. For this reason, many teachers adore Minecraft, a game in which children may safely explore a large open environment, find animals, and even construct their own home. It’s also a terrific idea for parents because it’s simple to do at home.

 Alexander Astin’s groundbreaking study in the 1980s shaped our present understanding of student involvement. “The amount and quality of physical and psychological energy students put in the college experience,” said Astin. Students learn more when they are engaged (Axelson & Flick, 2010). Engagement is more than simply exposure; it is when students show interest, get engaged, and feel connected in the course contents and other students (instructors, TAs, and other students). For deep and long-lasting learning, true student engagement requires cognitive focus (attention) and emotional fuel (motivation, interest, curiosity) (Astleitner & Wiesner, 2004). Focused, engaged, and motivated pupils learn more efficiently, taking less time on task (e.g., studying) (Nonis & Hudson, 2010). With that concept in mind, let’s go a bit more into three forms of student engagement: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. 

The three types of engagement: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral

Cognitive engagement

There is a vast corpus of research in cognitive and educational psychology on how to foster cognitive engagement in online courses. Part of increasing cognitive engagement is knowing what improves attention and memory and what degrades them. Because this article is about online course facilitation and delivery, we won’t discuss how to build online teaching materials. If you will be presenting information or generating learning materials (such as films, websites, presentations, reading materials, or even course announcements), an overview of the most powerful ideas and tactics may be quite useful.

Attention is a crucial cognitive function. Students will struggle to retain material if their attention is not captured. A human can only concentrate on a tiny quantity of information at a time (Cowan, 2010). There are various ways that online course facilitators may use to reduce distractions and promote the sort of concentration that is most conducive to learning.

Principles for enhancing cognitive engagement

There are a few established factors that influence student attendance and learning, which govern course facilitators’ tactics to promote cognitive engagement.

• Direct attention to key facts for efficiency and selection.

• Reduce needless distractions or information processing to avoid wasting limited cognitive resources.

• Present personally relevant information that easily catches attention (Röer, Bell, and Buchner, 2013). The Self-reference effect is a phenomenon wherein personal knowledge is better preserved and recalled (Lieberman, Jarcho, & Satpute, 2004; Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977).

• Consider ideal learning circumstances like Flow. Being in Flow (or “the zone”) is considered ideal for learning (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Flow states are characterized by a loss of sense of time and immersion in the job. In Flow, keeping attentional concentration is easy, even while doing demanding activities (such as playing an instrument or participating in a sport) (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2010). Flow is connected with good effect (Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010). So it’s a great place to study.

Emotional engagement

Emotional involvement measures how involved and motivated a student is to pay attention and put forth an effort. It is the driving force behind learning and progress.

Interest and curiosity are two cognitive emotions that define emotional involvement. Positive and negative emotional states influence attention and information processing. For example, according to cognitive researcher Barbara Fredrickson, good emotions might increase attentional ability (Fredrickson, 2001). Positive emotional states promote receptivity to new ideas, unique connections, creativity, cognitive flexibility, inquisitive thinking, and creative problem-solving.

• restricting or concentrating attention;

• leading to selective and detail-oriented processing;

• staying with a notion more exploitatively; and

• employing analytic problem-solving (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).

Possibilities for emotional involvement

Several emotions, both good and negative, may influence cognitive engagement and learning. Listed below are positive emotions that might enhance attention and learning. Negative emotions that may assist concentrate attention are also discussed.

• Feeling connected

• Acknowledged and valued

• Supported

• Interest

• Curiosity

• Surprise

• Joy

• Pride

• Humour

• Wonderment or amazement

• Anxiety, stress, pressure

Emotion goes a long way.

It’s vital to note that the advantages of emotion on cognition and learning are small variations in mood. Many of the good and negative effects of emotion on cognition and learning are lost or reversed when individuals are very emotional. Negative emotions may lead to frustration, anger, melancholy, helplessness, or tension, which can impede learning and memory (Vogel & Schwabe, 2016). Because positive emotion orients us towards novelty, too much pleasant feeling may be bad, limiting creativity and leading to distraction (Davis, 2008). In this case, a little emotion may go a long way. It’s not as hard as you believe to get pupils into emotional states that promote engagement and learning.