July 25 • 2019 49
jn

A Sensory Toolbox

Teacher wins grant to help kids with special needs.

E

arlier this year, early childcare 
educator Caryn Finkelstein of 
Farmington won not her first, 
but her second grant from the Terri 
Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation. 
Finkelstein, who has degrees in 
child development and teaching 
from Michigan State University and 
University of Michigan Dearborn, has 
been an early childhood professional 
for 27 years, 21 of them at the Early 
Childhood Education Center (ECEC) 
at University of Michigan Dearborn. 
Finkelstein’
s class includes a large 
number of students with special needs. 
Working with these students through-
out the year inspired her to appeal to 
the Terri Lynne Lokoff Foundation for 
a grant to work on a pro 
ject she has 
termed the “Sensory Toolbox.
” 
“Teaching 3- and 4-year-olds is 
incredibly rewarding and unpredict-
able. No two days are ever the same,
” 
says Finkelstein, who is single and 
often attends Congregation B’
nai 
Moshe in West Bloomfield, where her 
mother is a member. “The respon-
sibility to help tiny humans become 
empathetic and caring members of a 
community is immense.
”
Finkelstein adds that she spends a 
great deal of the day helping students 
solve social problems, learn how to 
work together as a group and talk 
about how actions affect others. 
“Sensory play is so important in 
the classroom,
” Finkelstein said. “The 
materials in this toolbox will help my 
special needs students, but all the chil-

dren will benefit.
”
Finkelstein’
s goals for the toolbox 
are to help students develop body 
awareness and regulation of emotions. 
“Many of the materials in the Sensory 
Toolbox will assist the children in 
calming down when big emotions 
overwhelm them and help them iden-
tify a range of moods and emotions.
“Special needs children can go to 
extreme feelings very quickly and if 
they can learn to manage these feelings 
in a play situation, they can use the 
things they learn when they do get 
angry or upset,
” she adds.
The toolbox will include timers, 
weighted pillows and neck wraps, 
kinetic sand, instant snow and differ-
ent strengths of therapy putty, among 
other things.
Caryn’
s mother, Paula Finkelstein, 
feels supporting early childhood edu-
cators is more important than most 
people believe and credits the Terri 
Lynne Lokoff Foundation for provid-
ing support to this community. 
The foundation was founded in 1987 
following the death of early childhood 
educator Terri Lynne Lokoff in a car 
accident the year before. Her family set 
up the nonprofit to honor her memory 
and “fulfill her efforts.
” 
“The Terri Lynne Lokoff Foundation 
is the only organization nationwide 
that recognizes early childhood edu-
cators,
” Finkelstein says. “They really 
make an effort to support, recognize 
and reward teachers that don’
t get a lot 
of credit or pay.
” ■

LEFT: Caryn Finkelstein at the grant ceremony this spring. RIGHT: These “emotion faces” are an 

example of what will come from Finkelstein’
s Sensory Toolbox.

JESSIE COHEN JN INTERN

COURTESY OF THE FINKELSTEIN FAMILY

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