August 2025

 Welcome to our August Sibshop! It was our last of the summer before school starts in just a few days.

Our Sibshoppers LOVED this trickle in activity. They spent almost 40 minutes creating these amazing paper sculptures. We had to drag them away to play more games and have more fun!

We welcomed each other to Sibshops and reviewed our rules & expections prior to playing some crazy fun rounds of "Triangle Tag."

Once we tired from tag, we sat down to enjoy a little "movie" together. This video called "What it's Like Having a Sibling with a Disability" had the kids making all sorts of connections to their own experiences. We then shared them on a graffiti wall. You can see the results below.

We munched on lunch while mingling and listening to some tunes.

 Cups & Downs is a silly competitive game that gets the blood pumping. One team wants the cups up and the other team wants them down. Clock starts and you try and get as many cups facing your way as possible before time runs out. 

It was a chaotic but enjoyable way to end our August Sibshop. We all ate a Creamie ice cream on our way out the door, admired our paper sculpture city and are looking forward to our September Workshop. 

July 2025

Welcome to our July Sibshop. 

We were happy for the opportunity to gather with friends, INSIDE, where we could enjoy the AC and chilling out together.  

Our Trickle In activity was to create a self portrait button. 

After our welcome and introductions, we played an energetic game of Islands. Islands is a fun version of musical chairs sans the chairs. In their place are paper plate islands that disappear as the game moves along. You must dance to the music until them music stops and then you find an island to land on. Last one to find an unoccupied Island is out of the game.

Our first discussion activity was "Wheel of Feelings". Each Sibshopper gets a chance to land on the wheel and tell about a time they felt that emotion in relationship to their sibling with special needs. 

We enjoyed bagel bites, yogurt and peaches for lunch. It was a nice and chill break which we followed with a competitive game of Head, Shoulders, Knees & Cups. 

Our final activity was to create a people paper chain. We then ate a delicious ice cream sandwich as we talked about our sweet circles of support. We are blessed to have awesome support systems who help set us up for success.

We will see you in August!

 

June 2025

 Welcome to Summer and our June Sibshop! 

For our trickle in activity, we did a foil art transfer project. It was really fun to choose colors, place them and see the finished project!

After our welcome and introductions, we played a silly pool noodle game. The goal is to keep all the pool noodles standing while releasing it and running to grab the next players noodle before it hits the ground.

As you advance in the game, the circle gets large and larger, making it a lot more challenging to grab the noodle before it hits the ground.

For one of our discussion activities, we tried to walk a mile in our siblings shoes. In "Moccassins" we take the opportunity to step into our siblings shoes and answer some questions how we think they might might. 

Some of the topics we considered are how your sibling feels about school, how your sibling feels about having you as their brother/sister, and what some of their favorite things are. 

"Hold Your Nerve" is a new game to our Sibshoppers. You stand in a circle and someone throws the ball to another player. That player must catch the ball while those on the side of the ball catcher must immediately squat down. When the ball is thrown to another player they must catch it, those on the side of that catcher must squat down while the other players stand up. If you don't squat when you are supposed to, or you squat when you aren't supposed to, then you are out!

For a simple game, it is surprisingly challenging! We laughed a lot trying to get it right!

Lunch was great and then we had calories and energy to burn off so we played a hoop game that proved to be pretty physically challenging. You have three hoops, two in front of the one and you start hopping into them and bring the other hoop from behind so you can jump into it and make your way from the starting line to the finsh line. 

Our Sibshoppers did 2-3 rounds each trying to get a personal best.

Our final activity was the M&M game. You get to eat an M&M when you answer the question with the corresponding color. Chocolate is great way to incentivize our Sibshoppers to share their experience with their peers. At least it makes it a little sweeter...

Looking forward to getting together again in July!