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. Thanks to the generosity of our friends at the Jewish Community High School of The Bay who have given us access to their beautiful campus and their committed student volunteers, we were able to bring our East Bay Clubhouse program to San Francisco.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Cooperative Relay "The Train" (On the Go!)


“Musical Chairs with a Twist: Modes of Transportation”: We played this classic game again today but added another twist. Pictures of vehicles and other forms of transportation were taped to the chairs. Each student received a corresponding picture that was attached to a stick. When the music played, we walked around the chairs. When the music stopped, we had to find our chair with the corresponding picture. 
Cooperative Relay “The Train”: We worked in teams (groups of two or three students). We held on to a hula hoop, pretended to be a train and then moved together as a group. After a practice round, we added some obstacles to go around without letting go of the hula hoop. Cooperative relays are a great way to promote teamwork and to work together for a common goal as well as to learn how to pay close attention to a partner(s).


Memory “Transportation”:  
We had fun playing this turn-taking game and tried to find as many pairs as possible. Focus and flexing our memory muscles were required. Of course, the memory cards showed different modes of transportation.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Race Car Painting (On the Go!)

Welcome back to our Clubhouse spring session. This time around, it's all about different modes of transportation.

Warm-up Game “Subway Musical Chairs” : We played this classic game today but pretended to be on a subway. At first, we did not remove any chairs but just found a seat on our "subway" when the music stopped. But then it got crowed on the subway train and the seats were limited (i.e., one chair was removed after each stoppage of the music) until it was standing room only.

Small Group Art Project “Race Car Painting”: We worked with a partner and created paintings using race cars with attached magnets, paint and paper: Raised plexiglass was covered with a piece of paper. Blobs of paint were placed on the paper as well as two race cars.  We moved another magnet against the underside of the plexi and painted with the race cars (e.g., making tracks). A very fun and interactive activity.

 
















Snack Time is always very popular at Clubhouse. Today, we took the opportunity to catch up with our Clubhouse friends and to find out what they were up to during the break.


Monday, April 16, 2012