It has often been argued that the arts contribute not only to academic success but also to your emotional well being. Throughout a range of contexts both with adults and children, I have witness this with the art of storytelling.
As a learning tool, sensory stories encourage students to explore their own expression and rewardingly they enable participants to communicate thoughts and feelings in an articulate, lucid manner. These benefits transcend the art experience to support daily life skills. Storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind children that their spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art. Telling stories, particularly sensory stories can effectively engage pupils. Whilst studying for my post-grad in Teaching, I manufactured my own sensory stories and often found myself awake at 2am microwaving play dough or some other resource that would enable my story to become interactive. Following my degree I worked as a Primary School Teacher in a Special Needs School where I had the delight to discover a large supply of ‘bag books’, to put it simply – prepared sensory stories.
Bag Books are a charity that promote multi-sensory storytelling for children and adults with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). They provide storytelling and training in multi-sensory storytelling techniques.
You can find out a little bit about them here:
Bright Circle Learning 