Special Needs

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Burris on December 13, 2011 at 8:27pm

My husband and I are on the process of starting a non-profit farm education program for children of all abilities.  I'd love to join your discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Gloria Cooke on December 21, 2011 at 11:02pm

The main reason I attended the special needs workshop was to glean some ideas for working with special needs children when they just show up as part of a class for a program which I am scheduled to teach at our farm.  I want these children to be able to really enjoy and learn from the experience and to that end I was hoping to get some tips on how to handle some of these busier students.  What are some ways to engage them when they are often easily distracted.  

It was obvious the workshop wasn't geared toward that kind of discussion but rather toward people interested in starting farm programs for this population.  

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Burris on January 18, 2012 at 7:48pm

Your question is difficult to answer as severity of behavior has a big impact on how to respond. Some simple things to start with are: engaging the child in your lesson as a helper of some sort, also giving them something safe to "do" while you teach is a good idea (we had one student draw on a small poster board a diagram of our garden, we had another sifting compost as we spoke) things like this help as they can keep busy while you are teaching. If you know ahead of time you can plan for older kids to help out as well, they can engage a younger distracted child. Hope hat helps.

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Permalink Reply by Gloria Cooke on January 19, 2012 at 4:20pm

Thanks so very much for the suggestions.  I realize it really is difficult to answer a question like this as one never knows how any given child, special needs or not, will respond to an outdoor experience on a given day.  I like the idea of engaging a child as a helper.  

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