The Clubhouse is the Behavioral Intervention Association's (http://www.bia4autism.org) after-school program. Once a week, children between the ages of 5 and 12, who have communication and social challenges, meet and engage in fun activities to practice different social skills. The Explorers focus on skills such as staying with the group, greetings, turn taking, participating independently in activities, and brief exchanges with peers. The Adventurers focus on skills such as initiating and maintaining conversations, perspective taking, and negotiating with peers.

BIA Clubhouse: Where Friendship Rules

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Adventurers: Cooperative Rocketship Race (Space)


Cooperative Rocketship Race: Today, we played an adaption of the classic cotton ball race. Put a start and finish line with the help of masking tape on the table. Attach a container (a shoe box works well), our space station, at the end of the finish line. Then, we partnered up and tried to blow a tissue rocket ship with the help of a straw from the start to finish line. The twist was that we only had one tissue rocket so we really had to work together to make it to the finish line.


Here are some ideas to promote cooperation and teamwork during the game: 
  • Let the two partners negotiate who is going first.
  • Encourage the team to come up with a strategy and to talk to each other during the game: Do we want to take turns blowing or to we want to blow at the same time?
  • Practice good sportsmanship, e.g., cheering on the partner when it is his or her turn, high 5s when the rocketship lands in the space station.  

Topic Talk: Snack is always a lively time at Clubhouse since we can joke and talk with our friends while eating our favorite snacks. Today, we picked a topic to get the conversation going. Each of us had to come up with one thing we liked/loved about Clubhouse and one thing that was hard or not so fun for us. 

Here are some of the things the Clubhouse students mentioned:
  • I liked that everyone was nice to me during the straw game.
  • I like the games and to see all my friends.
  • I love the space theme.
  • The obstacle courses are my favorites.
  • I was sad that one of our Clubhouse friends was not here today.
  • I sometimes don't like 'check check' [greeting ritual], when it gets too loud.
  • I didn't like that I did not get to share my comic with everyone.

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