Cricket Green School

Meighan wanted to introduce a whole-class activity that increased her class’s movement, spatial awareness, and scanning skills, as well as nurturing skills such as joint attention and collaboration.

She used two Cosmo activities (Exercise & Showdown) during regular 40 minute lessons, over a whole term. The cosmoids were spread around the class and students had to find and press as many as they could in the allotted time.

Students then wrote their scores ona large scoreboard that the class had created together. Students also split into teams and played Showdown together, which involved each team being allocated a colour and then finding as many of their coloured cosmoids as possible, in the allotted time.

The students picked up the concept of each activity surprisingly quickly and were reallymotivated by the exciting colours and sounds that the cosmoids made. Meighan mentioned that some students moved far more than usual and stayed engaged in the activityfor an impressive length of time.

Initially the biggest challenge was getting each student to wait for their turn to play. Introducing the team element meant that students didn’t have to wait as long, and it’s great that you can change the length of the activity in case you feel it’s too short or too long for the students your working with.

Having the Cosmo Teacher’s Guide was really handy as there are lots of tips on how to in corporate Cosmo into daily school activities. We started with the cosmoids close to the students and then gradually moved them further away, which encouraged more movement and scanning. It made the activity more challenging but in a fun way. Showdown also worked really well for encouraging teamwork between the students. We could split them into an Orange team and a Green team and get them to work together, and also competitively.

Absolutely. it would be an excellent addition to the toolkit for any Special education needs classroom.