The Adventurers: Recycling Truck (Earth)

 “Save the Planet – Recycle”: We partnered up and worked as a team. We pretended to be a recycling truck and were holding two pool noodles: 1 partner was in the front, 1 in the back, facing the partner’s back. The objective was to pick up “garbage” (i.e., plastic bottles), that needed to be recycled, with the help of the pool noodles and to place them in garbage cans/bins. When the teams had collected all their garbage, other teams got a turn. We also came up with the idea of a cheering section: The players, who were waiting their turn, had self-made "Save the Planet" signs and came up with different cheers while holding up the signs to motivate the teams.

This game requires a lot of cooperation and will not work if the two partners don't work together. It also teaches how to compromise and negotiate (e.g., figuring out who will be in the front and who will be in the back) as well as being patient with each other. And of course, it's fun!!! 

Friendship Passport, Part 1: We decorated a (fake) passport that we will turn into a friendship passport next week. We attached our portraits; added our names and date of birth or age. We also added stickers and our own drawings.

Explorers: Bozo Bucket Continent Toss (Earth)

Today was our first spring session. Our theme this time around is "Earth." To warm up, we started with an adapted version of the popular bozo bucket game:

Continent Bozo Buckets: Buckets representing the continents were spread out. The player whose turn it was stood behind a line and tried to toss a bean bag into one of the continent buckets. Each player could try 3 times to hit a bucket. If the player hit the target, he/she could draw an animal card out of the bucket. The flashcards were showing animals that live on that particular continent. 

This game addresses not only a variety of social skills such as turn taking and practicing good sportsmanship (e.g., cheering) but also provides great language opportunities such as learning the names of the different continents as well as the names of the animals that live on these continents. It also leads to natural opportunities for peer communication/interaction, e.g., the players can show the animal card they drew out of the bucket to their peers and structured questions can be asked to start a verbal exchange (e.g., "Do you like that animal?" "What is your favorite animal?").

Earth Collage: We all worked together and created a representation of our earth by attaching different collage materials (e.g., maps, pictures of buildings, stickers of animals, plants and people) to a big sheet of contact that was secured to the table with the sticky side up. We loved adding the glitter representing our oceans and deserts.

Adventurers: WE ARE FILLERS NOT SPILLERS

Today, we introduced our new friendship 'bucket' system. 

The idea was adapted from the book, “Have you filled your bucket today?” by Carol McCloud. Everyone in the group has a friendship bucket and earns marbles for acts of kindness and friendship throughout each Clubhouse day.  The first step was to come up with examples how our buckets can be filled and to create a poster. Here are the things the Clubhouse students came up with:

  
We also discussed what could spill (figuratively) our buckets, e.g., using unkind words or sending unfriendly body messages. But we all agreed that 'WE ARE FILLERS NOT SPILLERS!' At the end of each Clubhouse meeting, we will count how many marbles we have collected as a group.

The Adventurers: Astronauts (Space)

Today  was a very busy day. It was not only our last session before the break but we also celebrated one of our friend's birthday and had yummy cupcakes in honor of her special day. We had decorations up and took astronauts pictures with the help of our astronaut poster.

We practiced being kind by creating a birthday card for our friend and designing a Thank You poster for the teachers of room 20, especially Patti, since they are generously letting us use their room after school hours.

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.

The Adventurers: Rocketship Board Game (Space)

Rocketship Cooperative Relay: Have the players on each team hold on to a long jump rope with one hand to form a pretend rocketship. Place obstacles on the ground (we used big leftover pumpkins from Halloween). The players cannot let go. After each completed turn the player in front moves to the back and the team takes off again. Continue until everyone is back in their original position. This game requires checking in with each other and won't work if one of the players on the team does not follow the game rules (e.g., not holding on to the rope).

Rocketship Cooperative Board Game: Kids split into 3 small groups. The objective of the game was to move all game pawns (our pretend astronauts) across the board to the rocketships. We used a color and number dice at the same time but the twist was that we did not pick a colored pawn but all worked as a team to get to the finish. When the pawn landed on a colored circle, the player drew an action/question card. Here are some examples of the action/question cards.