Here are three tailored ideas for using the Cowley Owl Fireworks Lab app in special education!
1. Visual Engagement: Colour Matching & Cause and Effect
Objective: To develop cause-and-effect understanding while exploring visual tracking and colour recognition.
Activity: Set up a structured task where learners match fireworks colours to cards or objects before setting them off in the app. For instance, display coloured cards or blocks, and ask the learner to tap a firework that matches the colour they are shown. Watching the firework explode in the matched colour reinforces visual tracking and enhances focus on visual changes and responses to the app’s interactivity.
2. Perceptive Exploration: Sound Sensory Experience with Vibrations
Objective: To integrate auditory and tactile sensory feedback, especially for learners who may benefit from sound cues or vibrations.
Activity: Pair the app with a small Bluetooth speaker inside a vibration-conductive material like a car wash mitten or soft pillow. Every time the learner triggers a firework, the explosion sound will create a small vibration through the speaker, helping students to link sound and touch. For students with hearing impairments, the vibration effect can also enhance engagement with the sensory experience.
3. Engagement & Choice Making: Creating Personal Firework Patterns
Objective: To encourage personal choice-making and fine motor skill use in a guided, exploratory way.
Activity: Allow the learner to choose the firework shapes and colours before setting off their display. Prompt them to explore how different choices create different patterns and rhythms, encouraging them to make “their own” fireworks show. This can be built into turn-taking if done in small groups, with each student having a chance to observe the collective pattern their choices create.
