Monday, November 01, 2010
Indoor Activities
Never one to sit around bored, I have just finished and added to our mosscanyon.com store, a 35 page book of indoor activities for adults with developmental disabilities.
How easy is it to get stuck in a rut when you are in a facility based day program? How easy is it to just put out some paper and paints and claim that the clients are doing an "art project" while staff sits there and watches them for an hour or two?
Don't you wish you had some ideas for adult age activities that last 10 to 45 minutes and actually fit into your program's training mission?
26 of the activities come with complete information including:
Number of participants
Difficulty level
Prep time
Activity time
Materials needed
Activity instructions
Suggested SNAP Curriculum topics to discuss during the activity.
You do NOT need to have the curriculum to do these activities... but it makes talking about related topics much easier if you do. Still, let me emphasize that you do NOT need to have the curriculum to do the activities.
There are activities for all developmental levels to participate in. There are activities to stimulate relaxation, and exercises, fine motor control, and memory performance stimulators; all of the activities are designed to be adult age appropriate and fun! If activities aren't fun, clients won't participate in them.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing leisure activities just for the fun of it, we should always be looking for "teachable moments," and that's why I included suggested SNAP Curriculum topics to discuss during the activity.
Consider that board games are fun, leisure activities... but they are also games of strategy... and what is strategy? Planning ahead. How does that carry over to daily life? I heard that it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so my strategy should be to get my raincoat out this evening and make sure it still fits.
You can discuss the concept of "strategy" during the game and still have fun playing the game.
And, no, I am not saying that all activities under all circumstances need to be thought provoking, teaching moments. Sometimes, just having "free play" time is very valuable. We're speaking generally, here.
Some of these activities need no materials or prep time and can be done on the spur-of-the-moment in the community... such as a transition time while you are waiting for the transit bus... as well as in your facility.
One of the points of the book is also to stir your creative juices. What do your clients like to do? How do you turn that into a teaching moment? Think beyond "killing some time."
How easy is it to get stuck in a rut when you are in a facility based day program? How easy is it to just put out some paper and paints and claim that the clients are doing an "art project" while staff sits there and watches them for an hour or two?
Don't you wish you had some ideas for adult age activities that last 10 to 45 minutes and actually fit into your program's training mission?
26 of the activities come with complete information including:
Number of participants
Difficulty level
Prep time
Activity time
Materials needed
Activity instructions
Suggested SNAP Curriculum topics to discuss during the activity.
You do NOT need to have the curriculum to do these activities... but it makes talking about related topics much easier if you do. Still, let me emphasize that you do NOT need to have the curriculum to do the activities.
There are activities for all developmental levels to participate in. There are activities to stimulate relaxation, and exercises, fine motor control, and memory performance stimulators; all of the activities are designed to be adult age appropriate and fun! If activities aren't fun, clients won't participate in them.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing leisure activities just for the fun of it, we should always be looking for "teachable moments," and that's why I included suggested SNAP Curriculum topics to discuss during the activity.
Consider that board games are fun, leisure activities... but they are also games of strategy... and what is strategy? Planning ahead. How does that carry over to daily life? I heard that it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so my strategy should be to get my raincoat out this evening and make sure it still fits.
You can discuss the concept of "strategy" during the game and still have fun playing the game.
And, no, I am not saying that all activities under all circumstances need to be thought provoking, teaching moments. Sometimes, just having "free play" time is very valuable. We're speaking generally, here.
Some of these activities need no materials or prep time and can be done on the spur-of-the-moment in the community... such as a transition time while you are waiting for the transit bus... as well as in your facility.
One of the points of the book is also to stir your creative juices. What do your clients like to do? How do you turn that into a teaching moment? Think beyond "killing some time."
