So far this year has been great! We have a lot of old familiar faces in the program and a few new fresh and fun ones too!!! One of the most notable fresh faces is that of our new staff member JEN. She has provided the program with such a great boost of enthusiasm and positivity that it makes the place shine that much brighter.
Along with her overall AWESOMENESS she also wants to help keep the connections going with our HOPE family through help with this blog, an upcoming newsletter she is writing and adding thoughts to our FACEBOOK page.
If you have not liked our page yet please do so by clicking on the logo below, it is a great way to stay in the loop.
This week we will be focusing in on what really a friend is and how we can be a good friend to others. This video shows 7 great tips to friendship.
1.) Move closer and say your friend’s name before you speak to them.
2.) Use small sentences, gestures, and wait for your friend to respond to you. (Don’t babble on and on, friendship is a two-way street)
3.) Watch your friend so you can learn what he is good at and what he likes to do. (knowing about your friend is very important).
4.) Give your friend choices of what he likes to do (don’t just always do your favorite thing).
5.) Ask your friend questions to get to know him better. (what are some examples you can think of? )
– What school do you go to?
– Do you like animals?
– Do you like video games? If so what is your favorite one?
– What is your favorite thing to do on a free day?
6.) Use “friendly” words. (Nice words, compliments, understanding words) What are friendly words?
– The most friendly word is just a simple “HI”
– “I can’t wait to go to the movies with you this weekend.”
– what about just a smile…no words needed.
7.) Accept differences. Everyone is different in their own way, a good friend accepts the uniqueness of YOU. (what are some differences we might have?)
– Some people are taller, some are shorter.
– Some people are good at math some are better at reading
– Some people are really good at sports, some people don’t like sports.
Eye Contact. Our first social skills lesson will be focusing in on eye contact. This social skill is one we constantly work on at HOPE and is an important part of being a friend. I really think this video is a great recourse because the speaker is a teen who has autism himself. He really provides a great insight into why it is difficult to give eye contact and why, even though it is hard, to force yourself to do it anyways. If you want to put extra focus on eye contact at home as well that would be great. Please watch and comment below if you would like. – Katie
With the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan we thought it would be an opportune time to talk about emergencies and what to do if one should ever be in an emergency.
This lesson will begin with the students and I discussing what an emergency is. We will then watch this video I found on being prepared. Although it is a Sesame Street video I found it entertaining and full of good content regardless of how old you are:
Next we will be discussing what you need to know in an emergency and how to be prepared.
These work sheets will help to go over key information they should know, i.e. thier full name, phone number, address, emergency contacts, and 911.
I would like to buy an old phone at the good will and actually do some mock calls on stage as well this week.
Lastly, I would like to have the kids build a mini emergency preparation kit using these canvas bags I bought for an art project. In this bag I would like to have the: emergency Contact List, a bottle of water, a can of food, and a flash light.
This art project connects the process of growing a flower to growing a friendship. Step one was to sit down with the kids and discuss the parallels. Bellow is the list we came up with:
Both plants and friendships need: Love, Care, Time, Understanding, Patience, Light (metaphorically for friendships) , Energy, Giving.
We then painted our little pots. After this step was completed I had the kids choose their favorite adjective and find the word from the cut out letters I had prepared from old magazines. They then glued this word onto their pot.
The next step will be the soil and the seeds.
The final step will be talking about how to water and grow their flower.
This week we are discussing, Personal Space. The video we watch goes over what personal space is and why it is important. The right distance being about an ” arm’s distance” from the person you are talking to. Invading a person’s personal space by entering their “imaginary circle” may cause your friend to feel uncomfortable.
We are going to be doing journal entries every day. We will collect their entries and put them in their folder they decorated. I am hoping this quick exercise (if done consistently) will help the kids explore their own feelings and encourage them to use their words to let others know how they feel.
This is the template for the journals.
JOURNAL ENTRY- tell me how you’re doing today?
NAME:_________________________
DATE: ________________
ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 10 WHAT NUMBER ARE YOU TODAY?
______________
1- Super super sad
2- still very sad
3- a little sad
4- just down or sleepy
5- normal day
6- feel calm
7- feel like smiling
8- happy day
9- A day full of laughter
10- The happiest day ever!!!!
What feeling are you today ?(use emoticons if you need help)
Examples: happy, sad, frustrated, tired, hungry, sleepy, silly, cool, bored, hyper, confused, like running, like hiding, like yelling, like moving.
I feel _________________________________________________________ today.
The video lesson for this week deals with TACT. This is an interesting subject that I hope we can convey to the kids clearly. Tact is a subtle relationship skill that is often overlooked by people regardless of disablities and yet is key to maintaining friendships and other relationships in life. The art of saying hard things to another in a way that keeps the peace and does not hurt their feelings is the underling message .
Last week was hard because the rain made it so we could not do our usual ouside recreation period. This time is really important to a few of our kids who are really kinetically oriented and seem to need this outdoor time to get energy out. So we had to get creative trying to find other outlets so expend energy.
Body bowling proved to be quite successful and fun to watch!
Hope Kids 