Touch is central to children's learning, and when pupils at Macmillan Nursery School in Hull leave their classroom, they can continue their sensory investigations by exploring the series of tactile panels that now run the length of the long corridor.
The idea for the panels came about because the children had loved to run their fingers along the corridor walls, sometimes dislodging the work on display as they went.
The school was involved in the Creative Partnerships scheme to help foster relationships between artists and schools, so it turned to the project artists to help design a resource for some of the waiting areas and corridor walls.
The result was a set of giant jigsaw-piece-shaped boards, each with different resources or materials attached, which together provide the children with an array of sensory experiences.
The boards have removable panels, which they refit with new materials every few weeks.
Staff and children have used a huge range of materials on the boards, including wooden beads, grass (growing in bags), plastic shapes, clay beads, tinsel, felt, ribbon and plastic bags filled with liquid to squeeze.
One of the most appealing aspects of the panels is that they require an ongoing level of creativity in the school. Staff and children have regularly to use their imagination to devise new ideas about what to put in the boards and concoct new ways to use them.
While the main motivation for the boards stemmed from the children's love of touching things, the panels also enable them to explore sound and visual effects. In addition, with a full and ever-changing range of sensory experiences on offer, the children have every opportunity to develop a large vocabulary of descriptive and expressive words to discuss what they would like to do next with their sensory panels.
