Sprawling down the hallway at the entrance of Sparkman School is new sensory path for students. Kids can hop, skip and loop their way down the hallway to stay active and have fun during transition times in the hallways. 

Layne Dillard is the principal at Sparkman School and said the path is something that allows students a fun break while also preparing their minds for the next class. “It’s fun and we want things to be fun, but it’s also great for their brains to be walking in those different patterns and doing those things. Plus it just promotes activity in a world where students can be very inactive,” she said. 

Zaiden Lackey is a fourth grade student at Sparkman School and said he was impressed with the sensory path. “I think it’s pretty cool. I like the zigzags… well I like everything about it, actually,” Lackey said. 

The sensory path is part of an initiative to keep students involved through movement. “So we are doing a lot of brain based things here and we have really gotten into a lot of brain based research here. We really want to make it so our students have the best opportunities throughout the day and one of the things that they need for that is movement,” Dillard said. 

Dillard says after the great response from the sensory path, she hopes to be able to expand on it in the future in other hallways. She said the path and other similar initiatives help make school fun for students. 

“This school is built around what is best for children. I have worked six different places and I have never been anywhere where we do individualized instruction like this school. We have built the whole culture around the child. That’s what the floor represents an entire culture built around the child. Instead of trying to make the child a piece of school culture, the child is the center of the culture. We do everything differently but it’s because we do everything child based. That’s why the floor is so important, it says to the child that school is for you. We are here for them, it’s not that you are here for us. We have built this around what they need and not what we need.”