Teachers in an age-mixed classroom prepared a week-long project focusing on perception with all the senses. Every day the directed activities and time spent in the garden included activities focusing on acquiring information via a single sense. On the first day the activities were concerning hearing. The children learned to distinguish objects and musical instruments by sound, created a sound-based memory game, compared sounds (are they the same length, just as loud, etc.), played a game called “I’m off on a trip and I’m putting … in my suitcase,” where the goal was to remember what their friends said and add another word. They listened to various songs and talked with the teacher about their emotional reaction to the music (sadness, joy, fear, anger). Outside they played the “Hunt for Sounds” (see the chapter about communication skills). They were also introduced to the ear and its structure. The next day was devoted to smell. The children created a smell-based memory game – spotting two foam cubes with the same fragrant oil. They tried to distinguish various fruit and aromatic foods. They also made sachets of dried herbs. In a similar fashion they spent the following days on vision, taste and touch.

Jirka is a five-year-old boy with SEN, who has been diagnosed with a bilateral hearing impairment, which should be compensated using hearing aids.
The parents are visiting a speech therapist with their child, focusing on auditory perception and phonetic differentiation in hearing with visual support (mirror exercises). The speech therapist’s recommendation to the parents was games where the boy could practice auditory perception (for instance using articulatory sounds, such as s-s-s-s-s-s and mimicking the movement of a snake with his finger).
The parents informed the kindergarten teacher about Jirka’s speech therapy results and work at home.
Jirka has good motor skills, enjoys music and dance. For this reason the teacher decided to work on his auditory perception via rhythmical music and associated movement. Before starting the game itself, but after group motivation, it was important for the teacher to explain the musical movement game to Jirka separately. When providing instructions she made sure the child could see her face and understood the whole exercise.

At the start of the activity, all the children imitated the teacher’s movements in response to the music. The teacher deliberately chose this introduction so as to allow Jirka to associate the game with a specific movement. Gradually she allowed the children to move independently to the music and further develop their movement memory and coordination.
Jirka was relaxed during the musical and physical activity, had good movements and wasn’t afraid to fail.