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.
Sensory/Art Project "Under the Sea": Today, we created our own ocean in a Ziploc bag:
1) We squirted blue hair gel into a Ziploc bag. Since this was tricky, we had to make sure to help each other, i.e., one of us was holding the Ziploc bag open while our partner squirted the gel in.
2) We added glitter, plastic sea creatures and foam fish to the hair gel. Everyone was mindful of sharing the materials fairly.
3) Next, we had to make sure to get the air out of the Ziploc bag and then we closed it and taped the top with clear packaging tape.
4) We had a lot of fun moving the gel and sea creatures around in our bag.
5) We added some stickers such as dolphins, turtles, sharks to the outside of our bags.
6) We put our final product in another Ziploc bag, sealed the bag with tape and attached it to a poster board.
It was amazing how different our oceans looked.
Water Balloon Beach Towel Toss: Practice makes perfect. Today, we played this popular game again. We used beach towels to launch water balloons into targets (hula hoops). Two or more of us were holding the corners of a beach towel and lifted it up in the air on the count of three. We really had to work together as a team to make it work.
Art Project “Ocean Collage”: The students worked together and painted a big poster board with glossy/sticky paint and glitter paint We used colors that represented the ocean (i.e., shades of blue and green). We then attached sea creatures and
stickers to the board. Here is an very easy way how to make glossy and glitter paint:Glossy paint: Mix corn
syrup with paint or food coloring.
Glitter paint: Mix paint with glitter.
Water Play: We filled bottles and different containers with the help of funnels and hoses and looked for shells and sea creatures with fish nets. We worked on sharing a space and toys with our friends.
 |
| Squeezing the oranges |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Small group project “Orange Banana Smoothie”: Today, we had a lot of fun preparing our summer smoothies. While we were cooking, we made a list of our favorite smoothie ingredients. Chocolate was among the favorites. We learned that cooking requires a lot of teamwork.
Here is our smoothie recipe (6 servings):
3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (8 oranges)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
2 cups strawberries, tops removed, and cut in 1/2
3 ripe bananas, cut
Combine the orange juice, lime juice, strawberries, and bananas in a blender and process until smooth.
Later at snack, we drank our smoothies. Some of us really liked the taste, others not so much. But we all tried them.
 |
| Ready to blend |
 |
| Cutting strawberries |
 |
| Hello and High 5 |
Island Greetings: Islands with footprints were spread out on the floor. We danced around to music. When the music stopped, each
student placed his or her feet on a set of footprints. The footprints were
arranged in two parallel lines so that two kids faced each other. Students then greeted each other in different ways
(e.g., high fives, wave, shake hands).
Orange Banana Smoothies: We were so excited to prepare our smoothies today. We followed our recipe (see Adventurers 8/18) and practiced cutting bananas and strawberries and using a juice squeezer to get freshly pressed orange and lemon juice. It was fun blending all the ingredients in the blender.
“Islands in the Sea”:
Islands (beach towels) and fake sharks were spread out on the floor.
When the music played, the students danced around the beach towels. When
the music stopped, they found an island to stand on. With each stoppage
of the music, the island got smaller (fold towel). The kids had fun to
share the islands and to save each other from the sharks in the water.
“Seashell Painting”:
Everyone likes to go to the beach in the summer and collect seashells.
Today, we painted seashells with watercolors and glitter glue. It was
amazing how different our painted seashells looked.
Water Balloon Relay: We
partnered up with a friend and went around obstacles, each of us
holding a container with a water balloon in our hands. At the end of the
obstacle course, we tossed the water balloons into hula hoops. We had
to pay close attention to our partner and the container with the water
balloon.
To get moving, we played our popular "Balloon Volleyball" game. We were divided into two equal teams and sat on the floor. Then, we tossed a balloon back and forth across a line that divided the teams. At first, we only had to keep one balloon up in the air but then we slowly added more balloons and had up to five balloons going, which was quite challenging but great fun.
"Ocean in a Bottle": Today, we created ocean waves in plastic bottles.
First, we added glitter, shells and sea
creatures to the bottle.
Then, we filled the bottle halfway with blue water. We used a funnel and helped each other, e.g., one of us was holding the funnel while our partner was pouring the water into the funnel. We topped off the rest of the bottle with vegetable oil and then screwed the cap onto the bottle and taped the cap. It was a lot of fun to move the bottle back and forth and to watch our ocean waves.
“Shark Island”:
Islands (hula hoops) and fake sharks were spread out on the floor.
When the music played, the students danced around the hula hoops. When
the music stopped, they found a hula hoop to stand in. With each stoppage
of the music, some islands (hula hoops) were removed. We had fun sharing the hula hoops with our friends.
Volcano: This was our favorite activity of the day. We could not believe how long we got our "lava" to flow. Excellent teamwork!
- First, we took turns filling the
bottom of a medium-sized paper cup with baking soda. We filled the cup
approximately 2/3 with baking soda.
- Then, we added red Kool-aid powder and mixed it into the baking soda.
- We attached a second medium-sized
paper cup with a pre-cut hole (approximately the size of a dime) upside
down over the paper cup with baking soda. We had to make sure that the
cups were taped together securely. Therefore, we used strong clear
packaging tape.
- Last, we took turns pouring vinegar
with the help of an empty yogurt cup into the hole. We had to pour
really slowly. It was very exciting to watch the "lava" come up through
the hole. We just had to make sure not to get too close to the hole so the vinegar would not get into our eyes since everyone knows volcanoes can be dangerous.
Tip: If the "lava" stops flowing, add some more baking soda through the hole to the cup.
 |
| Scientist at work! |
