Inclusive Spaces in San Diego Part 1
By Jessica Jordan, MS, OTR/L
For this blog post, I am sharing about one of my favorite places to take my children & niece and nephew in San Diego! The New Children’s Museum, off West Island Avenue, was surely the highlight of our trip!
The museum made sure there was something for every child inside. The museum featured multiple floors with activities tailored to different age ranges. I really liked this as an occupational therapist because I feel like my job is focused around development and sharing what may be an age appropriate expectation/activity or the “just right challenge” for any child.
My oldest daughter, who was about 16 months at the time, really enjoyed the area that featured the white plastic “shag” carpet. With her shoes removed, this provided her feet with tactile input that she cautiously enjoyed and offered her new levels of awareness regarding where her body was in space (i.e. proprioceptive system) with this new grounding. This area also had additional tactile input with furry cushions that my little one gravitated too with smiles.
My nieces and nephews loved the Wonder Sound installation and tree house! This multi-level primarily wooden structure featured areas to climb, tiny spaces, and plenty of visual input that stimulated your senses! We spent a majority of our time here with the many different passages, nooks, and rooms which allowed for exploration, but was also very calming for my daughter.
The children also came together when we found ourselves alones in the room with the large chalkboard. The full length chalkboard (from ground to ceiling) encouraged involvement from a child’s entire upper extremity in order to draw, color or write due to the vertical surface. The beautiful thing about chalk though is that it is not permanent. My niece and nephew had the opportunity to practice writing their names on the chalkboard, but if they made an error they were able to watch it being modeled with the correct letter formation, erase it, and try again. Sometimes my model was still visible which assisted them with a nice visual cue.
One of the best things about this place was that with all the wonderful skills the children were working on… and it was all child led play! And even some parent education for my sister in law who was hesitant for my niece to engage in messy tactile play that challenged her tactile system, proprioceptive system, and praxis skills in order to use her hands as a paint brush to paint a car. We will make sure to always stop at this museum for future adventures!
