Staff members of North View Middle School’s special education department recently saw the fruits of their grant application come to life when they were able to build a large Lite-Brite style wall unit with the financial support of both the Maple Grove and Brooklyn Park Lions Clubs.
North View’s occupational therapist, Cori Smith, said their program includes several visually impaired students, and they benefit greatly from light boards to interact with manipulatives and curriculum. With funding secured, they turned to the school’s Gateway Tech teacher for construction support, who worked with his students to complete most of the project. One of the school’s visually impaired students, who benefits from this unit, helped to drill the final hole. School custodians mounted it to the wall at a height conducive to wheelchair-bound students.
Smith said the department has planned lessons with the new Lite-Brite wall unit that involve matching, copying, sequencing, designs and patterns, and more.
“We thought this would be great for our kids to work on hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, following directions and working together,” she said. “When we saw one at the Brooklyn Park library, we decided we had to figure out how to do it for our students.”