It is always hard this time of the year to find activities for group therapy with my Life Skills groups. There are usually 5 students in each group and the abilities are really varied. I try to include some motor activity because this keeps their attention. Using objects for actions is more meaningful for them then paper tasks. However there are a few students who have motor difficulties which makes it difficult for them to do some tasks and work with the group.
My inspiration often comes from my closet. This is a picture of what I found. I decided to make a badminton type activity. They used the pool noodles to hit balloons through the hulu hoop and then over the jump rope stretched across two chairs. We encouraged two students to hit it back and forth to complete turn taking. I reinforced the prepositions of over, through, below, under, and above. My early language learners practiced phrases such as “Give it to me”, “Hit it”, “I want it”.
One of my students kept saying “there it is”. He was a student who we usually had trouble engaging and he blossomed with this activity. For a student with Downs he had amazing eye hand coordination. I hope he does badminton for Special Olympics.
I liked the pool noodles because they didn’t hurt if students hit each other and the balloons slowed down the process enough that all the students were able to hit them. I recommend having spare balloons. We had one student who couldn’t resist squeezing and popping them.
