Sensory Integration

In the Enki approach, in both the classroom and homeschool programs, artistic activities that develop rhythm, balance, coordination, and spatial awareness are integrated into academic areas of the curriculum on a daily basis. Exercises, games, movement verses, expressive movement, and folk dance all build the skills needed for successful academic, artistic, and social learning. Specific movement experiences are drawn from Jean Ayres’ Sensory Integration and from Paul Dennison’s Brain Gym. Our sensory integration program is designed to foster each child’s full development through focused movement. These exercises are part of daily movement work and are helpful in re-mediating learning difficulties. Along with this ongoing work, specific classes are dedicated to a variety of movement arts.

Aikido, a non-aggressive martial art, cultivates interpersonal skills and awareness. In the middle and later elementary years, the curriculum also includes sports, team games, fitness exercises and children's kyudo, a contemplative form of archery.

Special Sensory Integration equipment is used during playtime as well as in movement classes.

Playful verses are used to engage the children in exercises designed to foster both neurological and sensory integration.
		Lazy lion wakes at dawn And growls with a toothy yawn. Stretching up to greet the sun, He knows another day's begun.

		Reaching forth with mighty claw, He opens wide his fearsome jaws. Then stretching up from tail to mane, His roar resounds across the plain.

During the Middle and High School years, ongoing work with rhythm, balance, coordination and spatial awareness continues in activities such as juggling, mime, and folk dance. While our sensory integration program addresses this development in an ongoing manner throughout the school years, on the strong base built in the early years, the students now shift their primary emphasis to expressive movement, fitness, and sports.

Music is an integral part of all academic classes throughout the grades, bringing to life the flavor of the many cultures and themes studied. Using high quality wooden recorders, we begin our formal study in Grade One. Simple group singing and recorder playing in the early grades develops into complex rounds and beginning harmonies in both song and recorder in the later elementary years. Children come to experience many cultures and many times through music. They also work with the mathematical relationships in rhythms, scales and musical notation. In the later elementary grades children begin work with an additional instrument and are introduced to working in small orchestras. 

The powerful draw of music for the pre-adolescent and adolescent makes clear that music gives voice to much that these youth cannot yet express in any other way. In deed the popular songs of our adolescence often keep a special place for our lifetime. In recognition of this, during the Middle and High School years, music continues to have a central role. All students participate in both orchestra and chorus, in mixed-grade classes.

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