Flo Longhorn’s Sensory Umbrella
When you listen to a speaker you need to be inspired. Your mind needs to fill with ideas as they speak. I had the pleasure of listening and watching Flo Longhorn at a conference late last year and came away with a desire to rush out and put these ideas into practice. The idea that particularly grabbed me was that of the sensory umbrella. Also called the storytelling umbrella these are very simple highly immersive storytelling props.
Update: I have now used a Sensory Umbrella for part of a Sensory Story for the Blue Abyss topic with my Key stage 3 PMLD cohort.
I made this umbrella for our new Egyptian Adventure Sensory Story.
Keep up to date on our facebook page
This video shows me doing by best “Art Attack” moment.
A Sensory Umbrella Sky Full of Stars
How fantastic to create a sky full of planets to enhance your space theme resources. Or aircraft, helicopters for your transport topic. These can be revealed as slowly as you like to build anticipation. In the dark of the sensory room some cheap LED bulb stars create a immersive self contained story telling prop. There are no demands, this is not a worksheet.
If you have a tube of planets you can attach each one with velcro and each planet can be plucked from the sky.
Age vs Stage Appropriate
We struggled for a while a few years ago about age appropriateness at our school. Flo summed up what we now do “Person appropriate” quite right. What stimulates and engages your student? Use this build on it. Capture their imagination then give the power to the student to use your resources how they want. Who says your idea is the best? Who says there is only one way to do things? The first thing my daughter said when I had made the planet one was “Where’s the sun?”. So for the plane one we used a see through umbrella so we could use the light as the sun (or even take it outside to use the real sun).
Below is our “silent firework umbrella” from bonfire night. Not everyone likes the bang, but the lights – maybe.
The problem with poundland umbrellas is they scrunch up into themselves. I feel a beg, borrow and um.. scavenge approach is good, if you can get your hands on the huge golfing umbrellas they really are great. You can fit a few sensory learners beneath your creation.
These from Amazon are good for planes etc so the real sky can be seen through the material.
Anyway you have seen my attempts at creating an immersive learning experience using sensory umbreallas. The video below shows some Flo and her colleagues have designed, including cultural umbrellas.
Links
This site will always share for free but you can support us by clicking any of the hopefully useful education, teaching linked sites below.
Here is a page of Top Educational Toys
This is a link to explore Grammarly, an awesome tool for checking spelling and grammar.
Save
What great ideas! Thanks for sharing.
You actually make it appear really easy together with your presentation but I find this topic to be actually one thing which I believe I would by no means understand. It kind of feels too complex and very broad for me. I’m taking a look forward in your next submit, I will try to get the dangle of it!
I am no longer certain where you are getting your info, however great topic. I needs to spend a while finding out more or working out more. Thanks for magnificent information I used to be looking for this information for my mission.
Wow, awesome weblog structure! How lengthy have you been running a blog for? you made running a blog look easy. The total look of your site is excellent, let alone the content material!
Thank you for your comments Alex
It’s really a nice and useful piece of info. I’m glad that you shared this useful information with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.