Using Your Senses to Adapt Environments

What's In This Kit?
This training kit encourages teachers to find ways to make their classrooms more open and accessible for all children, including children with physical, sensory, learning, or social differences. It invites teachers to adapt the environment for children with special needs in ways that have a positive impact on all children. It contains:

• Expected training outcomes
• Preparation instructions
• Training strategies and tips
• Implementation steps
• Follow-up activities for teachers
• Follow-up activities for administrators/directors
• A learning assessment
• A training evaluation/further needs assessment
• A resource list
• The article "Using Your Senses to Adapt Environments: Checklist for an Accessible Environment" by Kirsten Haugen
• A training certificate to award to teachers for attendance and participation
• A certificate for the trainer and other presenters

Who's the Target Audience?
The target audience for this kit is beginning and intermediate teachers working with young children from birth to age 8. Teachers will analyze the accessibility of their own classroom environments and explore how physical, visual, auditory, and social aspects of the environment impact children’s learning and participation.

Teacher Skill Level

beginning intermediate advanced

Children's Age Level

infants toddlers preschoolers school-agers birth to 8

Kit Timeline:
Preparation time for this kit is 1.5 hours. Implementation time is estimated at 1.5 hours.

Training Outcomes:

1. Teachers will identify accessible features of the environment that increase classroom safety and access for children with special needs.
2. Teachers will describe ways to encourage children’s participation and learning by adapting the physical, auditory, visual, or social environment.
3. Teachers will apply their understanding of accessibility and accommodation to suggest at least one practical change they could make in the environment.

These training outcomes address the following:

• A-5, B-3b, and G-4 of the Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1998).
• Standard 1 and 4b of NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation, Initial Licensure Level (NAEYC, 2003).
• 1304.53(a)(1), 1304.53(a)(10)(xvii) and 1304.53(b)(1)(iii) of Head Start Performance Standards (Federal Register, Nov. 5, 1996, Volume 61, Number 215).

Note: Downloadable PDFs are only available for download in pdf format. Directions for downloading follow immediately after purchase.