Activities for a Social Skills Summer Camp

 If you are considering - or have organised a special needs/social skills group summer camp,well done to get this far!
Our group has been running for over a year now, each six weeks we have a new programme of activites. If  you are looking for some ideas about what to include in your summer camp, please feel free to use some of our plans:

Hometrain Social Skills Group

Summer Camp Programme of Activities:

Monday 1st – ‘Making New Friends’ Circle time: Greetings and This is me: ‘My name is …..’ and ‘I am……’- adding new lines each day. Group Games: Indoor and outdoor games and activities Language: Listening and social skills games Arts and Crafts: Puppet making Drama: Learning a poem Goodbyes.

Tuesday 2nd – ‘Together is Better’ Circle time: Greetings and This is me. Group Games: Indoor and outdoor games and activities Language: Making sounds, listening and social skills games Arts and Crafts: Painting Drama: Making up our story, pretend play. Goodbyes.

Wednesday 3^rd – ‘What Do You like?’

Circle time: Greetings and This is me.

Group Games: Indoor and outdoor games and activities

Language: Talking about our friends

Arts and Crafts: Picture frames

Drama: Music and singing

Goodbyes.

Thursday 4th –     ‘How are you?’ Circle time: Greetings and This is me. Group Games: Indoor and outdoor games and activities Language: Expressing / understanding own and each other’s feelings Arts and Crafts: Drawing and colouring Drama: Dressing-up, practising for our show Goodbyes.     Friday 5th – ‘This is Me’ Circle time: Greetings and This is me. Group Games: Cooking, indoor and outdoor games Language: Our poems and songs Our end of week Show: ‘This is Me’ The end of the week show is open to parents, and the theme 'This is Me' will be the same for both groups 4-7's and 8-12's.

The puppets we make on day one are simple puppets of ourselves, and the painting activity is a group painting on newsprint (the big wide roll of newspaper printing paper) which will be the backdrop of the show on Friday. The picture frames we make will be displayed at the show and to be taken home along with the puppets.
The poems are simple and can be taught either by each child having a line, and for non-verbal kids, have their line written on a sign or board.
The poem I chose for the younger group is 'Stripey Tiger' by Daffy Lister, each child will have a short line from this.
The songs we sing in greetings and goodbye will be part of the show too.

Don't be put off by the idea of a show. It can be done on a small budget, and I think the best part is you have fun and a real focus for the week. Be sure to delegate jobs to your staff members. Be sure the show is about the kids, and the parents will love it.
The families will also see how much work you have done with their kids, and not simply 'entertained ' them for a week.

If you can get permissions, film the show for parents to buy a copy for extra fundraising!
If anyone would like copies of our songs and poems, you can e-mail me at: info@hometrain.ie

Claire.