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Category: News

NAHT SEND Conference 2022

Posted on 5 October 2022 by jess

NAHT SEND Conference Rhino UK

We’re gearing up for the 2022 NAHT SEND Conference – will you be there?

Sarah and Carlyn, from our sensory team, will be heading to the annual headteacher’s special needs conference to talk about all things sensory! Whether you’re looking to start a big sensory project or beginning to think about how sensory could be used in your school – they’ll be able to offer their expert help, inspiration, and advice.

If you’re worried about not getting the chance to visit our stand, book a meeting with our team!

Sensory in Schools

Our sensory team has over 15 years of experience helping to make schools inclusive for students of all ages and abilities, supporting their wellbeing, and nurturing their development.

  • Creating calming sensory rooms where students can rest and reset between classes.
  • Designing sensory gardens that stimulate and connect senses to nature.
  • Building sensory integration rooms that actively develop students’ minds and bodies.
  • Providing portable sensory resources, like our sensory voyager trollies, that can be wheeled from room to room and shared between classes, distracting and calming users while they expand their minds.
  • Transforming underutilised rooms into immersive reality spaces that can be used for learning, socialising, and play.

If you haven’t already bought a ticket for the event, you can do so here.

We look forward to seeing you there,

Team Rhino!

Key Information

  • Date/Time: 8:30 am to 3:30 pm on Wednesday 19th of October
  • Location: The Studio, The Hive, 51 Lever Street, Manchester M1 1FN
  • Book a meeting with our Sensory Team
  • More information about the event

Salford SEND Conference 2022

Posted on 28 September 2022 by jess

In October, our sensory team will be heading to Manchester to take part in Salford University’s annual Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Conference.

The conference will see sector leaders, professionals and parents come together to discuss special needs education in light of the Covid 19 pandemic, as many educators have seen SEND students ‘forgotten, left behind, or overlooked’ after years of disruption.

Our sensory team has over 15 years of experience helping to make schools inclusive for students of all ages and abilities, supporting their wellbeing, and nurturing their development. Whether that’s:

  • Creating calming sensory rooms where students can rest and reset between classes.
  • Designing sensory gardens that stimulate and connect senses to nature.
  • Building sensory integration rooms that actively develop students’ minds and bodies.
  • Providing portable sensory resources, like our sensory voyager trollies, that can be wheeled from room to room and shared between classes, distracting and calming users while they expand their minds.
  • Transforming underutilised rooms into immersive reality spaces that can be used for learning, socialising and play.

Make sure you stop by and chat with our friendly sales team at the conference. They’ll be more than happy to share their expert advice and answer any questions you may have.

If you haven’t already reserved your space at the conference, you can register right here.

We look forward to seeing you there,

Team Rhino!

Key Information:

Book a Meeting with our Sensory Team

nasen Live 2022

Posted on 6 July 2022 by jess

On July 15th, we’ll be heading down to the Vox Conference Centre in Birmingham to take part in nasen Live 2022, ready to talk everything sensory!

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Inclusion by Design’, hoping to prompt discussion about how children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) can feel more included and excited about learning.

Our sensory team has over 15 years of experience helping to make school and learning environments inclusive. Whether that’s:

  • Installing acoustic clouds to classroom ceilings to help reduce noise reverb to help students who are sound sensitive concentrate and focus during lessons.
  • Creating calming sensory rooms where students can rest and reset between classes.
  • Designing sensory gardens that stimulate and connect senses to nature.
  • Building sensory integration rooms that actively develop students’ minds and bodies.
  • Providing portable sensory resources like our sensory voyager trollies that can be wheeled from room to room and shared between classes, distracting and calming users while they expand their minds.

Make sure you stop by and chat with our friendly sales team on the day; they’ll be more than happy to share their expert advice and recommendations and answer any questions you may have. You can find us at Stand 52!

We look forward to seeing you there,

Team Rhino!

Key Information:

  • Date/Time: 9:30 am to 4:30 pm on the 15th of July
  • Location: Vox Conference Centre, Birmingham, B40 1PU
  • Rhino UK Stand Number: 52

Design in Mental Health Conference 2022

Posted on 23 May 2022 by jess

In June, we’re going to be heading out on the road to attend the annual Design in Mental Health Conference in Coventry. It’ll be our first in-person event for 2022, and we’re really excited to see you in person to share the wellbeing-boosting, developmental and therapeutic benefits of sensory resources.

Scroll down to find out more about the conference, what it’s about, and where you’ll be able to find us.

Design in Mental Health Royal Devon Hospital

What is the event all about?

This year’s Design in Mental Health conference is centred around ‘creating environments designed to heal’ – offering the opportunity for industry experts, teams and designers to come together to explore ideas, discuss challenges and create positive change.

Where is the event taking place?

Design in Mental Health 2022 is taking place at the Coventry Building Society Arena. You’ll be able to find us at stand 101!

When is the Design in Mental Health Conference?

The conference is running on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th of June 2022. Doors open at 9 am, and if you arrive before 10 am, you’ll get free parking and a free breakfast!

Who will be there?

Keren and Linten from our design and sales teams will be there to say hello, talk about sensory rooms and resources, and answer any questions you may have.

They’ll be bringing along a portable interactive omiVista projector system, samples of our bespoke safety padding, an infinity tunnel and a mesmerising bubble wall – so that you can experience the therapeutic and wellbeing boosting benefits of sensory in person.

 

More Information

Design in Mental Health Sensory Room

Easter Sensory Activity Pack

Posted on 14 April 2022 by jess

Easter is almost here!

To celebrate our Sensory Team has put together an egg-citing Easter activity pack for you to get stuck into. It’s free to download and filled with sensory recipes, arty crafts, slimy science, colouring pages, and lots of egg-tastic activities designed to stimulate and develop your senses.

Our activity booklet is perfect for anyone with a sensory processing disorder, learning disability, autism, or a free afternoon to explore their senses.

Download our Easter Sensory Activity Pack

You can download it right here.

Easter Sensory Activity Pack

 

Useful Sensory Blogs:

 

Love Your Garden

Posted on 14 January 2022 by jess

The sensory swing.

Just before Christmas, a special episode of Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Garden aired on ITV. In the episode, Alan and his top team of horticulturalists create a magical sensory garden for Amelia – a nine-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Our team of sensory experts were able to get involved with the project, offering advice, support, and a very special swing.

 

Amelia and her bright smile

Amelia’s Story

Because of her condition, Amelia is regularly too ill to leave the house, which means she doesn’t get to explore her senses in nature as much as she’d like to. Her mum, Shabnam, describes how difficult this can be for Amelia as she loves being outside and in nature.

Inspired by Amelia’s story, Alan and his team started designing a magical sensory garden for her and her family to enjoy. An accessible outdoor space where Amelia would have the opportunity to freely explore her senses.

 

Danny constructing the swing

The Design

Alongside calming water features, an aesthetic folly, and blooms of sweet-smelling flowers sits a circular play space with a special sensory swing in its centre – one of Amelia’s favourite pastimes!

Surrounded by dreamy plants, the swing is bathed in a magical fairy-tale glow, perfect for stimulating Amelia’s imagination and offing a calming space for her to explore her senses.

Swings and their rhythmic motion provide relaxing vestibular stimulation that will help Amelia become more comfortable and confident in her body, helping her in her personal and physical development.

 

Alan and Amelia's mum watch her swining on her new sensory swing.

Overall

Overall, Amelia’s garden transformation was an incredible success. Watching her face light up as she and her mum explored their new garden was as magical as the space itself.

We’re really proud to have played our part in supporting Amelia’s sensory journey.

 

Amelia and her mum in the sensory garden

Discover More

Winter Sensory Activity Pack

Posted on 3 December 2021 by jess

Christmas is on its way!

To celebrate the occasion, our Sensory Elves have been busy putting together a wonderfully wintery activity pack – designed to stimulate your senses, develop key skills and inspire lots of festive fun!

Our activity booklet is perfect for anyone with a sensory processing disorder, learning disability, autism, or a free afternoon to explore their senses.

Download our Winter Sensory Activity Pack

Winter Sensory Activity Pack Contents:

  • Winter Bingo: Grab your sensory bingo card and use it as a guide to explore your senses this winter. Who will be the first to get a line or a full house?
    • Skills: Sound, Taste, Visual, Tactile, Sensory Exercise, Creative.
  • Sensory Baking – Apple Pie Cookies: This warm recipe is great weekend activity. Explore your senses in the kitchen and bake a tray of tasty treats.
    • Skills: Tactile, Taste, Smell.
  • Elvin’ About: Count the colourful Christmas elves in this festive counting activity.
    • Skills: Visual, Counting.
  • Gingerbread Slime: This recipe is excellent for stimulating your sense of smell, developing your fine motor skills and having lots of slimy fidgety tactile fun!
    • Skills: Tactile, Smell, Fidgeting.
  • Winter Senses: Think about your five senses in the winter, and which sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures are your favourites (e.g. building a snowman and the feel of the cold snow on your hands).
    • Skills: Sensory Thought, Introspection, Preferences.
  • Christmas Tree Hand Arts: It’s time to get a little bit messy so that we can make a Christmassy piece of art! Explore your tactile senses and develop your fine motor skills as you create your own handprint tree.
    • Skills: Tactile, Fine Motor, Creative, Visual.
  • Christmas Glitter Jars: This easy to make DIY fidget is perfect for visual stimulation and can also be gifted as a handmade sensory Christmas present.
    • Skills: Visual, Distracting, Stimming.
  • Colour Me In: It’s design time! We’re challenging you to design your own Christmas jumper. Use your art and fine motor skills to create a jumper that you’d love to wear.
    • Skills: Fine Motor, Creative, Visual.
  • Mindful Colouring: Focusing on the colours and keeping between the lines is a simple therapeutic activity that can calm and relax your mind. Why don’t you give it a try yourself with our mindful Christmas colouring page?
    • Skills: Calming, Visual, Fine Motor.

Two children playing in the snow.

Useful Sensory Blogs:

Design an Effect Wheel Competition

Posted on 18 November 2021 by jess

Calling all sensory artists!

This Christmas, we’re challenging you to design your own fantastically festive effect wheel in our annual Effect Wheel Competition – where the winning entry will get their design turned into an actual effect wheel!

How to enter

  1. Download the template: You’ll need to download our effect wheel template before you start getting creative. Our template also comes with a handy design guide to help you with your design.
  2. Get creative: Channel your creative energies and design your wheel, whether that’s dinosaurs dancing in the snow, Santa surfing at the seaside, or winter wonderland filled with glitter and sparkles.
  3. Share your design: Take a picture or scan your wheel design and send it to Jess (jess@dev-rhinouk.pantheonsite.io) with the subject ‘Effect Wheel Competition’.
  4. Deadlines & Winners: Our competition closes on the Friday 17th of December – so make sure you get your entry’s in before then. We’ll announce our winner on Monday 20th of December, who’ll receive their winning effect wheel at the start of the new year!

design your own effect wheel

Christmas Voyager Competition

Posted on 17 November 2021 by jess

Play Specialists bring a sparkle of festive cheer across wards throughout the year, but Christmas is an especially important time to get patients involved in distracting, calming and engaging activities.

Many families have to spend the Christmas holidays in hospital. But, as much as we’d like them to, illnesses don’t take a break for Christmas. To overcome this, we want to play our part in helping to fill festive hospital stays with fun, laughter, and happiness – which is where our fantastic festive competition was born!

We’re setting you the challenge to transform your Sensory Voyager into a seasonal sensory surprise by decorating it with tinsel, baubles, drawings, fairy lights, and any other festive decorations you can get your hands on to create a Christmas Voyager.

And what’s a challenge without a motivational prize? The winner of our Christmas Voyager Competition will win a 1 x Snowflake Effect Wheel, 1 x Christmas Themed Wheel & 1 x Effect Wheel of your choice!

How to get involved:

  • Get creative: Spend time working together to decorate your Voyager. Explore your creative skills to create something unique and magical.
  • Take a Picture: or a video of your Christmas Voyager. Not only would we like to see it in action, but we’d love the designers to get in the photo too!
  • Share it: Send your picture/video to us on social media by tagging us @RhinoSensoryUK and using the hashtag #ChristmasVoyager. Or, if social media isn’t your thing, share your design with us via email to Jess (jess@dev-rhinouk.pantheonsite.io) with the subject ‘Christmas Voyager Competition’.
  • Deadlines & Winners: Our competition closes on the Friday 17th of December – so make sure you get your entry’s in before then. We’ll announce our winner on Monday 20th of December!

Our Christmas Voyager Decorating Tips:

  • Tinsel: Tinsel is a terrifically tactile decoration that tickles your hands as you run it through your fingers. Watch as the glittery strips sparkle in the light creating a magical visual display. Why don’t you wrap tinsel around the outside of the voyager doors like a sparkly border?
  • Christmas Effect Wheel: Did you know that we have a collection of festive effect wheels for your Voyager? Our snowflake wheel is great for bringing the wonder of snow inside, whilst Santa makes a special appearance in our festive fun wheel.
  • Colours: Finding the right colour for your bubble or hurricane tube is the key to creating a fabulously festive voyager. Alternate between traditional reds and greens or be inspired by Elsa and create an icy blue voyager fit for a snow queen.
  • Make It Personal: The best Christmas gifts are the ones that are personal (a hand-knitted scarf is better than any branded one you can buy in a shop). Create paper decorations to stick to the Voyager, get crafty and make some glittery baubles, add some personal pictures, or make the perfect Christmas playlist to play through the speakers!

 

22nd December Update:

We are excited to announce that Jamie from Scotland is the winner of our Christmas Voyager Competition! Out of all the fabulous entries, we thought that Jamies sparked the most festive joy (we can’t help but smile watching his video – which you can watch right below!).

We’d like to thank everyone who took part. Keep an eye out on our sensory blog for more sensory competitions that you can get involved with 🙂

National Play in Hospital Week 2021

Posted on 6 October 2021 by jess

What is National Play in Hospital Week?

National Play in Hospital Week 2021 is a week dedicated to celebrating the magic of play in hospitals and all dedicated play specialists who help make that happen.

The week also aims to raise awareness of the mental and physical benefits of play and how it can greatly boost the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of children and young adults who receive long term care in hospital settings.

 

What are the Origins of the Celebration?

National Play in Hospital Week started back in 2010 when the National Association of Health Play Specialists (NAHPS) decided to raise awareness of their cause ‘to promote and ensure the provision of therapeutic and stimulating play facilities in healthcare’.

Just under 50,000 children in the UK have a life-limiting or life-threatening illness, and they will likely need regular trips to the hospital for important treatments and appointments. Hospital play services are essential to help make those trips as manageable as possible, dispelling anxiety and inspiring bravery.

 

The Benefits of Play in Hospitals

Play is usually written off as something fun. But its benefits are wide-reaching. As Cathy Gilman, CEO of Starlight Children’s Foundation, explains, “Play isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’, it’s an essential service for maintaining the wellbeing and development of children and young people before and after treatment.”

Benefits of Play in Hospital:

  • Play helps children learn more about their health and understand why they’re in hospital and what their treatments are for, empowering their time in care.
  • Play reduces anxiety, fear and stress surrounding hospitals, improving children’s wellbeing.
  • Play can help to reduce the pain associated with hospital treatments.
  • Play can give children a sense of control and help them feel as though they have some autonomy – something that’s typically lost through illness and hospitalisation.

 

National Play in Hospital Week 2021: Playing through the Pandemic – a Narrative of Positive Interventions (11-17th October)

With the plight of the pandemic putting a strain on resources, services and limiting the amount of support patients can have in hospitals – play has never been more important!

This year NAHPS are dedicating Hospital Play week to the Hospital Play Specialists who have worked tirelessly to ensure that play has been kept at the heart of their work during the pandemic.

 

Rhino & Hospital Play

During the pandemic, our sensory team have worked hard to ensure that hospital play teams could access the resources they needed to make play possible.

One of the most popular resources has been our all-in-one sensory dream machine – the Sensory Voyager. Every voyager is portable, practical and infection control friendly, wheeling from room to deliver joy, distraction, and big smiles to patients in need.

We’d like to celebrate National Play in Hospital Week by sharing pictures from this year’s voyager deliveries and giving a big shout out to the NHS Heroes who’ve been working tirelessly throughout the pandemic!

Lister Hospital Safe Space Room Portsmouth Hospital Paediatrics Emergency Department St Mary's Hospital Paediatric Department

 

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