Sensory Arts

Every week we have a new activity to maintain excitement and focus. This workshop must always be adaptable and flexible to suit Artmakers interest and mood that day.

We start with a group discussion and then listen to Artmakers music requests whilst working and playing, allowing Artmakers to learn through a lot of experimentation.

Art themes loosely follows, for example, the ‘In My Shoes’ Artmaker Festival project was explored through clay, as this can be a very sensory focused theme.

Mindfulness and Wellbeing – Sensory Arts is a very relaxed and worry free workshop we’re not fixated on finished results we’re enjoying the making and the process and having fun.

Social and Communication Skills – Artmakers are encouraged to work together as a team and help each other, this is working really well and new friendships have formed as a result. We always discuss what we enjoyed or maybe didn’t enjoy about the workshop at the end of the session. One session we always finish with a song as one of our group loves musical theatre and so we include time for this in the session.

Independent skills are promoted through less guidelines and product focused work, as well as more experimenting and Artmakers adapting activity to their preferences. For example, one Artmaker hadn’t been able to paint until this workshop, so we created non-traditional paintbrushes (extendable sponge brushes that hook onto Art Makers wrist) that they could use without the need of their 1-1 support.

We sometimes have multiple activities happening at once, so Artmakers can make choices and find out what they like and don’t like e.g. a water activity and a drawing activity.

We use a mix of verbal, makaton and hand gestures. As well as explaining activity through showing activity and encouraging Artmakers and support staff to have a go, we also encourage working together – some of the group pick the activity up quickly and help others promoting friendship and teamwork.

Sensory exploration enhances cognitive, social, emotional and behavioural development by stimulating senses in ways other workshops may not be able to focus on as much. Our main focus doing this is having fun and pushing ourselves to try new activities in a safe environment that may be out of our comfort zone.