Indoor Physical Learning Space (Soft Play)
Book Areas
Music Room
Hydro Pool
Early Years
Reactive Room for specialised VI and HI work
iSandbox Room
We love our new i-sand room at Ravensbourne. The dark room has a height-adjustable sand tray onto which a menu of interactive programmes can be projected. Sounds accompany the lights to enhance the sensory experiences for the learner.
Here’s what some of our teachers say:
One of our learners with PMLD enjoys seeing the light reflecting on the sand and it motivates him to engage with the sand. His chair is manoeuvrable and so it provides easy access to the tray. Sometimes the tray height movement sensors become sandy which means that it isn’t always accessible to everyone, but this can be fixed.
All of my learners enjoy being in the i-sand room and they particularly enjoy the game which involves squashing the dragons. One of the learners will now say ‘dragon’ when she wants to access this programme.
The i-sand room is a quiet space where learners can explore the sand and it’s fine if the floor becomes messy. It’s a great sensory experience and there is a learner in my class who never previously engaged with sand but will do in the i-sand room. The learners particularly enjoy the programmes which show movement and some of the learners’ focused interests link to the programmes e.g. popping balloons and watching leaves float across the tray. Different children use the i-sand room and tray in unique ways.
My learners enjoy choosing programmes and running their hands through the sand, watching it fall, seeing the coloured projections on their hands and arms. They particularly enjoy the freezing ice age programme, the multi-coloured artist game and catching the dragons and cyclops shapes. All learners will now happily go into the room.
The i-sand room is helping to develop communication skills with my learners. I have a pointing stick and one learner will point to the menu to indicate which programme he will choose and then press the buttons to change the programme with this stick. I have Widgit symbol/word cards available in the sand and one learner will use the card ‘splat’ to catch the dragons and the card ‘pop’ for popping the balloons.