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.
We were so excited to be back. We welcomed a new Clubhouse friend and also celebrated one of our friend's birthdays. He brought cupcakes for us (so yummy!). We started with the birthday boy's favorite activity, namely playing with the parachute and balloons. Here are some things we tried:
- Merry-Go-Round: Everyone holds on to the parachute and moves in one
direction. Start slow and then pick up speed. Add balloons and work together so that the balloons stay on the parachute.
- Color Explosion: Add different colored balloons to the parachute
and let them bounce.
- Parachute Launch: Move the parachute up and down,
count to 10 and then let the parachute go. Can be done with or without balloons.
Science
Experiment “Floating Rainbows”: Since our theme is science this time around, we engaged in this fun and fascinating experiment. We split up into small groups and filled a glass container almost to the top with water. Then, we added a layer of
cooking oil (half an inch to an inch) and dropped in some food coloring and observed what happened: Water and food coloring mix, oil and food coloring do
not. The food coloring passes through the oil to mix with the water. We were mesmerized. This was also a great activity to practice turn taking as well as teamwork and engaging in conversations about the experiment.
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| SCIENTISTS AT WORK!!! |
