BIA Clubhouse: Where Friendship Rules: Summer Camp: Friendship Rocks, Day 15

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.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Summer Camp: Friendship Rocks, Day 15

Today, we made a FRIDAY FEAST: Hummus, Guacamole and a Strawberry-Banana-Orange Smoothie. Cooking and eating together is not only fun but cooked meals are great social events with tons of opportunities to practice social and conversational skills:

Teaching life skills through cooking.
Practicing teamwork by working on different tasks together.
Conversations during meals: What is your favorite food? Do you like the guacamole or the hummus better? How does the smoothie taste? What fruit did you put in the smoothie?
Practicing table manners.
Trying new foods.
Creating a sense of community.

To help our campers with conversations during meals, we use TOPIC TALK CARDS. These are self-made cards that state a certain topic as well as illustrate some options how to contribute to the given topic. The pictures help less verbal kids to participate as well.

We truly had another exciting week at camp. A BIG THANKS goes to our fantastic camp volunteers: Adrien, Elizabeth and Lior.

BIA Clubhouse: Where Friendship Rules