Coming down the homestrech......

This past week in class we finished up our group long activities. The groups topics that were included Team Activities, Drama/Fine Arts, and Relaxation activities. The first group lead activities that emphasized the need for team work. The first activity was called "birdie on a perch" and was much like paired musical chairs. You would walk around until the music stopped and then raced to not be the last team to jump into your partner's arms. (Needless to say my team won!)  My favorite activity done by this group was a blind folded obstacle course in which one person in a pair was completely blind and the other was the sighted guild. This activity would be useful for teaching about visual impairments and how helpful a sighted guide can be and how important communication can be. It is important that the participants know the safety risks involved in moving around blindfolded.

My group was the next one to go with our Fine Arts activity. Our first activity was an creative informertial in which each group was given a random item and had to sell it as if they were from a different world and did not know what it was (much like the clip above from the little mermaid at the 3:30 point). Our next activity was wheel chair dancing which went very well. In this activity we paired up the students and had one person be in a wheelchair and the other be standing we then put the pairs into groups of three and gave them time to choreograph their dances. Needless to say there were some pretty creative dances. We did not have time to do my activity but hopefully I will be able to tell you about it next week. My favorite of these was the wheelchair dancing because it could be very useful to teach advocacy to all populations.

The final group did relaxation exercises. We started out by making stress balls out of balloons and sugar. Next we did some mental imagery, deep breathing and progressive relaxation exercises.  These exercises would be very useful for at-risk groups, chemical dependency groups, or anyone because everyone feels stressed every once in a while.