11/21/97

What kinds of inexpensive group activities can you recommend?

Q: I conduct counseling groups with children who have problems with social skills, such as shyness, aggressiveness, poor listening and low cooperativeness. What group activities do you suggest for a mental health professional on a shoestring budget?

A: Your students are the best source for ideas. For example, I worked with a group of sixth graders who had difficulty with peer cooperation skills for a variety of reasons. Through a process of brainstorming and discussion, we came up with the following activities for their group:

• Create a school bulletin board around the theme of environmental protection, using recycled materials from home and school.
  
• Conduct a survey of all sixth grade classes about cafeteria food. The students wrote, administered, scored and reported on the results themselves.
  
• Invite parents of group members to a holiday card-making party. (One or both parents of each group member attended.) The principal especially liked this activity, so he arranged for cookies, juice and coffee for the event. He also took pictures during the event, from which the students made an attractive collage. The collage was put on display in the school office, much to the pleasure and pride of the
  students.

Results were excellent. Student self-esteem, cooperativeness and grades improved for the rest of the year! (We met once a week for about 4 months.) Much can be done with little money and much imagination (which students always have in abundance).

Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.