MH

Teaching Art to Students With Special Needs

Multi-Handicapped Students

I was first assigned to teach a class of multi handicapped students two years ago. I am in no way an expert on this but I'd like to share some things that have worked for me or... have NOT worked! I do this in order to help you out in case YOU are in the same position I was in. If by any chance you are reading this and you have some expertise in this area, please share your ideas with me and I will share them with others.

I have a group of 12 students for a 40 minute class in the art room once a week. There are four aides who come with these students. There is a wide range of fine motor skills, verbal skills and cognitive skills. I have really enjoyed these children now that I am over the panic of how to plan appropriate lessons.

There are links to specific lessons at the bottom of this page- scroll down to find them.

General tips:

• Plan lessons around the senses- sounds, touch, smell, …What can you build into your lessons that can be felt, make sounds or excite the eye etc. A GREAT lesson would involve all the senses.

In my teaching I often ask many questions but in the MH classes I try to explain rather than use questions because many of my students are non-verbal. So I use the questions one on one but when I am explaining the lesson it is a quick introduction or demo with a clear example.

• Enrich and expand their life experiences through your lessons. The themes you organize your lessons around can help the students explore seasons, holidays, color and a variety of everyday experiences. I have found pre school sites to be particularly helpful in finding themes and simple activities that can be modified for my students.
• Think outrageously- brainstorm wild and wacky ways to use materials, sounds, art products and other non traditional things- thou shalt honor thy crazy ideas!   
• It’s not a good idea to use food or tasty smells ( like markers that smell like candy) or spoons to scoop glitter etc. with students who might put things in their mouth.  So be careful about what you use or at least be aware.
• The most creative part of your lesson is the spontaneous part of how you can increase the level of participation. Think on your feet- listen and look for ways you can get even more out of the experience you are providing. Watch the reactions just as you would as you listen to students in a regular classroom.
• On the other hand, plan the lesson carefully- think of how each of your students would react to any particular situation and then plan for that.  Who will eat, smear, throw, drop, or shout.  Who will want to move, jump, push,  hit, laugh, cry, sing, dance, touch, or check out.  How can you make it better for them?  How can you organize the chaos and still have it be fun and meaningful? You can modify a lesson by allowing several ways to reach the goal. For example, can you change a glue bottle to accomodate a particular student? If a student squeezes too much glue would it be possible to have them brush on glue or use a small glue stick?
• Scrap bad ideas immediately
• Have some backup plans to fill time for the above.
• If  students throw things, eat them or break them- it’s a sign of bad planning- learn from that experience.
• If they appear to be apathetic you are not connecting. Watch for body language that tells you you whether you are reaching them. I watch for a raised eyebrow on one of my students!
• Try hard to have either movement or music as a part of your lesson. There are many pre school sites that have great songs for many themes to the tune of simple songs and you can even make up your own. I have started taking my guitar in.
• Use paper as little as possible. Or use it in new and strange ways.
• Try not to use traditional art supplies such as markers, crayons, pencils- this is not to say NEVER use them but try to include other options as often as possible. 
• Try to provide things to do during any transitions so that students who have difficulty waiting or taking turns have things they can do- have things they can touch or feel .
• Teachers and aides probably won’t be sitting down very often!
• Find ways to communicate your ideas and philosophy to both the aides and teachers.  Convince and educate. Also listen! Remember that being in the art room is different for the aides than what they might be asked to do in the regular MH classroom so be clear on your expectations. In the classroom the shape or color must be put into the correct spot but in the art room it might be ok to just put it anywhere!
• Forgive yourself for any failures and allow yourself to learn and grow  in the process.  You can’t be perfect and you don’t have to- you  need to want great lessons and be willing to pursue that to the best of your ability.
• There are people out there with great ideas- search for them and then share all information whenever and wherever you can- a ripple effect.
• Consider developing a simple questionaire for the MH classroom teacher that would give you an idea of the skills of each student. You can find out things such as cutting, glueing and drawing skills, shape, color and letter or number recognition, verbal skills etc. What do you need to know about your students that can help you plan special lessons?
• You might have students who really enjoy tactile experiences and you can have a variety of things in a box to feel. I found a great knobbly rug at a discount store that one of my students loves to touch. On the other hand some of your students will not like the feel of things such as clay or may not have the strength to squeeze it.
• Check out the OT goals for each student. You might find that one goal is to use a writing implement for a short period of time or to pick up objects and place them in a container a certain number of times. The goals can range from this easy to a more complex set of skills. These OT goals can help you know each student and plan good activities for them.
• I read one bit of advice that suggested that your example be at their level or drawing ability. If I feel my students are at the stage where scribbling back and forth is their goal then I scribble back and forth but if you feel they are ready to draw a circle demonstrate that. Let each young "artist" feel that what they do is beautiful and fun.

SOME THINGS THAT MY STUDENTS HAVE REALLY ENJOYED:

• Balls in a box- One day my theme was black and white. I had a clear plastic storage box and the children choose black or white paper that fit into the bottom- I used squares to help in the end display. I dipped various balls in either black or white paint and put them in the box. The students rolled them around by tipping the box. For some students the aide or teacher stood behind them to prevent spilling the container. One of the enjoyable aspects of this was to watch the balls through the plastic sides or over the top. You might try this with smaller boxes that have a lid or do the technique over a painting or collage done in a previous class.
• The overhead projector- One day I put a container of clear colored plastic shapes by the overhead and the students could place them on the overhead to project the colors onto the wall. Depending on your theme or goal you could make your own clear images by laminating acetate or cellophane. You might copy outlined images on the copier and then color them with permanent markers to fit a theme. If you project these onto large paper the students might enjoy painting the images or squirting water paint at them. ( I have NOT tried that!) The overhead projector could also be used for a "show" where you put things on the top- maybe a clear cake pan filled with water where you would drop food coloring in and watch it swirl.
• On a day when the theme was cars I made a selection of cut out convertibles out of sheets of 12 x 18 paper and I went to their class ahead of time to take a sideview digital picture of each student as they pretended to drive and printed them off using power point to get to a printable sized image. I cut out the images of the students. This became the basis for a project where their image was glued onto a background paper on top of their choice of car. We had a "road" to glue onto the bottom as well and you could also have things to decorate the car such as stamps, stickers, cut out wall paper shapes or racing stripes.
• On this day we also sang car songs ( Go riding in my car car and My Big Red Car) , and made fun to feel steering wheels out of felt, posterboard, shiny garland and ribbon to wrap or tie on.
• My students love to stamp. You can collect many kinds of stamps to a variety of themes and these can be the activity or add to a drawing. They also love to roll with pattern sponge rollers or even just regular brayers. One day we rolled paint with little cars. You can make a "stamp pad" by pouring slightly watered down tempera over a pan filled with folded paper towel.
• Ice cube painting- Ahead of time put water and tempera or food coloring into ice cube trays and slide a popsicle stick in each section and freeze. Get these from the freezer just before the activity. The students paint with the icecubes on dampened paper- the students can dip the paper into water containers or you can do this for them. it might be possible for there to be images on the paper already using permanent markers or crayon that they fill in or have the paper be interesting shapes that they can use in a collage next time. ( blobs, flowers, fish, stars, etc. )The colors of the ice can fit a theme as well such as under the sea blues and greens or fiery red, orange and yellow.
• My students enjoy putting simple shapes into a grid. I had these fun plastic squares so I made a quilt grid by tracing them and the students could pick their colors and glue them into the squares. When they were cut out they make nice ornaments or necklaces. They also enjoyed picking out fabric squares to glue onto paper. Expanding this idea you could have them glue fabric onto fabric ( perhaps a T shirt?) It might be possible to make a matching game where you trace various standard circle lids onto a surface and let students find the ones that fit and make polka dot art.
• We made felt art smocks on our first day this year. I cut out simple white felt ponchos and let the students spray on watered down acrylic paint ( put down a plastic tarp and stand behind to help direct the spray), letter sponge stamps dipped in acrylic to "spell " their name or initials and also squeezing gel paint in fun glitter colors onto their name written on the smock in permanent marker. Any fun activity where the paint or material would be permanent would work.
• Draw with marker- squirt with water
• There are brushes where the handle is clear- you can put watercolor inside and they can watch the paint level go down as they make their marks.
• Collect squirt and spraybottles, deodorant roll ball containers, stamps, found objects, sponge shapes, rollers, stickers, hollographic paper, fake fur, fabric pieces of many patterns and textures, bubble wrap, colored garland, that spider web stuff that stretches over doors and bushes, seasonal sale items such as plastic Easter eggs or Holloween spiders.
• Look at things in stores in a new way- I found clear plastic gloves in a handyman aisle that were very cheap and I think they could be fun to make into a puppet or just use to paint with.
• Sometimes I look through the Oriental Trading Company Catalog for items but I also look at the product and see if I can use that idea.
• Most of my students enjoy putting beads on pipe cleaners- adding a bell is a fun twist. They also enjoy threading string through holes punched in poster board. The posterboard can be cool shapes from the die cut machines.
• a simple activity that can fill a time gap is to take a simple shape such as mittens or a car and put it on the glass of the copy machine and then copy with the top up- the image will be white and the background black. When the students color it it will automatically look great because any "mistakes" they make will be on the black and the image will still show. These decorated images could then be cut out and used.
• My students enjoyed making a simple pop up book where the cover was about April Showers and the inside had pop up May flowers. The April Showers part had fun fluffy puff ball clouds and hollographic blue rain drops. The flowers were cut out from wall paper books.
• It's fun to have students pick objects out of a bag to discover shapes and textures they can use in their art. The fun is to pull out and discover so this can fit many themes and activities.
• Spin art machines- my students just love this! At Christmas we did spin art on poster board and then cut their art into circles to be an ornament.

THINGS I HAVEN'T TRIED BUT SOUND FUN!

• Colored or regular sand on a tray or in a jar- raking the sand on the tray- shaking to mix colors in a jar. I think you might also be able to use salt colored with chalk in the jar.
• Finding objects in a clear container that is filled with either sand, salt or plastic pellets- the objects will appear as they shake or roll the container. One project I saw along these lines was to sew a felt container with an acetate or clear vinyl window where you could put objects in for the students to find. Concerns to overcome would be breakage and spillage of containers, or toxic or choke hazards with the fillers.
• Paint with a koosh ball or a squeeker toy.