Child Care Center Opening...your advice needed

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Hi ! It's me again.

Well, the nonprofit I founded, A Special Space, Inc., has a mission to open a therapeutic childcare and development center for children with autism and other special needs...along with NT's since inclusion is considered mandatory.

Anyway, I found out today that we will be able to open in the classroom wing of a local church. I couldn't be more excited!! !

We will open in the fall for school-aged children for just before and after school daycare. We have one large room, very open, big beautiful windows with lots of natural light, an indoor gym and a seperate room to use for our sensory area. It's a smaller room and it will have sand/water table, small trampoline, sit-n-spin, swing, etc. Stuff that I know helps my child calm down when he is feeling anxious.

The main room, I have already learned from you all, needs to have nothing on the walls, no overhead lights, etc. We won't have more than 12 kids total. So the group will be small. I am going to set up areas in the 4 corners...one a reading nook with book shelves and beanbag chairs, one with computers and an Xbox, one for art supplied/homework help, one maybe for science stuff? Lego's? Not sure.

So do you all have any thoughts first of all if you think that would be cool?
Do you like the 4 area idea? It gives some private, separate spaces and leaves a lot of open space which I think would be good. Do you?

Do you like the idea of the sensory room?
If so, are there additional items that you think would be good to have?

And then I need to figure out schedule.
If you were attending, would you like to have a very structured setting? Like get off the bus, hang up your stuff, have a snack, then go outside for 30 minutes, then come in for homework help or to use one of the areas for an hour? Is that too much unstructured time or is it too structured?
What would you want to do with your time after school?
I know that my son likes to come home and just chill with computer games to decompress. I want our kids to have that option.

Feel free to visit our website at www.aspecialspace.org if you want to know more about our mission.

Anyway, I would really like your input. I want this to be amazing!

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Parents' Discussion]

Each child's needs are likely to be different so its hard to say whether there should be more or less structure. The short arrival routine you suggest sounds good then follow that with a limited number of choices for each child that can be done with the number of staff members you have to supervise them. For example, on Wednesdays after snack the choices are the sensory room or outside for the first 30-60 minutes then the choices are the sensory room or one of the stations in the the main room, just as an example. As PP said, visual schedules would be good for some but maybe not for all of the kids, you would need to see which kids that works for or not.
From my personal experience, I could see how the computers and video games could become problematic. Again it depends on the interests of the individual kids but what would your plan be if you have 5 kids who all want to play on the Xbox more than anything in the world? Just something to think about. You can probably work around this if you have a plan up front.
I think you really have excellent ideas here! I only wish we had an afterschool option like this where we live. We have tried a couple afterschool programs and they just haven't worked. The sensory room and the stations in the main room sound great. In addition to the beanbag chairs, you might want to have other types of cushions or camp chairs, I have heard some people say that the noise/texture of the "beans" in beanbags is irritating for them.
I think that after school my son needs extended time with as few transitions as possible. He recuperates by having time to play with manipulatives like blocks or legos. He needs to have the choice to play all alone if need be although if his day was not too taxing he is open to interactive play. One thing my son enjoys is a listening center, this can be a comfy chair or cushions, a pair of headphones and a CD player or MP3/iPod with either books or music to listen to.

Not sure Xbox is a good idea, what do you expect the kids to gain from it? At my son's pre school they have an IPAD and he uses several apps on it (not sure the names of them as I don't have an IPAD myself.)

LOVE the idea of the listening center. Awesome!

XBox 360 uses the body to play the games. This provides not only exercise for a group that tends to avoid it, but helps develop gross motor skills, balance and other skills that many kids on the spectrum lack. The games would be educational and physical...also can be played by more than one person. This teaches social skills, sharing, and interacting with others. I feel pretty strongly that it is important.

I know the computers are going to be a hot button issue. We will have to limit time on those just like I have to do at home.

Any other thoughts? Thanks so much for your input.