Seeing a need for students in Elizabethton, Harold McCormick Elementary School is preparing to open a sensory room and area inside the facility.
During a tour of the school on Monday, Assistant to the Principal Penny Nave provided a detailed explanation of what will soon be an area to help students get through their day at school.
“We feel this will be beneficial for all our students, but we’re gearing it more toward our extended resource classrooms,” Nave said. “Having five minutes with an assistant or an OTA – we feel it be an asset for our students.”
The concept of a sensory room is based on a 1970s Dutch philosophy called “Snoezelen,” a blend of two Dutch words meaning to explore and relax. The idea of a room is for it to be used for a broad generalization that may have special needs or sensory issues.
Seeing the need had the school move into action, Nave explained. Before working on a room, the school began the process to work on a sensory garden with help from kindergarten students and teachers.
“I think it’s very beneficial to all schools,” Nave added about having a room. “Once we kind of started talking about doing the sensory room here when we started to talk about doing our sensory garden outside. Implementing a sensory garden is really what started us wanting to put in a room. I had a chance to look online and see the different sensory rooms in Johnson County and Johnson City.”
A rather spacious area allows school to grow from more than just a room, Nave said. Outside of the room will house a sensory area.
“This will be the entrance for the sensory room,” Nave adding, motion around the room. “We will use this as a foyer and as an area where we can have two to three assistants down here with students to help with the OT is in the room with a student.”
While the school is still working at finishing the final piece, there has been support according to Nave – including donations from a kindergarten student’s parent and a grandparent.
The room itself will feature a variety of tools to help students, including a couch pouch, sensory bins, rope lighting, waterfall and other items to help make sure students get a stress-free environment.
“Tentatively, we’re looking at two weeks from now to have the sensory room and garden ready,” Nave said. “At least to have them operationally, then we would just added on during the school year. I think over the years, we’re going to see more of a need for a sensory room in all schools across the country.”
The Harold McCormick sensory room will be the second in the Elizabethton City School System following the opening of a room at Elizabethton High School in September.
During the grand opening, we’re the school received donated items from Thomas Davis with Edward Jones Investments, special education instructor Forrest Holt noticed the need at the high school level.
“We only had one classroom last year but this past summer, I acquired this adjoining room,” Holt recently told the Elizabethton Star about the high school’s area . “So we now have two rooms since we’ve been growing … moving forward, with the help of administration, Dr. (Corey) Gardenhour, members of the community like Thomas Davis … we’re able to make this happen.”