September 2016

We got our silly on to start our September Sibshop! Our Sibshoppers used some crazy cartoon templates to create some crazy-riffic cartoon characters.

 We love our fun group of Sishoppers!  We are always surrounded by great kids and are happy to be constantly making new friends.

 Triangle Tag is one of our favorite classic Sibshop games! A group of three, the triangle, tries to protect one of their one who is marked with a red bandana from getting tagged by a person outside their triangle who is "It!" 

 The hard part is that the triangle must always hold hands and are not allowed to break their hold.  If they do, they lose just like that!

 The hard part for whoever is "It" is that they are not allowed to reach through, under or over the triangle.  They must get a clean tag on their opponent from the outside of the circle.

 We spent some time talking about ourselves and our siblings through the use of a Venn Diagram.  The kids were encouraged to think of things specific to them as individuals, things specific to their sibling with special needs, and then things where they may overlap! Sure seems like almost everyone likes pizza regardless!

 After a yummy lunch we were back at it!  This time we got the kids moving with some Balloon Tennis and Around the World.  These games often prove to be a little more challenging than our Sibshoppers might think at first sight!

 Our Sibshoppers needed a little bit of a break from the exercise and we sat down to do a little bibliotherapy.  We broke into groups and read some books together that specifically address families with children with special needs.  We are just hoping that our kids will make connections, share experiences, and learn they are not alone.

 Our final activity of the day was "Scrabble Scramble."  This is another Sibshop Classic that we accidentaly locked up in the vault! How we let so much time go by without playing this one I will never figure out! There are two teams with a limited number of alphabet letters they can work with to respond quickly and efficiently and effectively with to win points.  

Happy September to all our Sibshop Family and Friends! You are the relatives we enjoy getting together with! 😉

August 2016: Summer Fun Celebration!

 We had gorgeous weather for our End of Summer Fun Celebration! 

With the end of summer quickly approaching and the start of school just right around the corner, we took the time to just play, play, play!

We started by tie-dying Sibshops t-shirts.  Sounds easy, but the rubberbanding is challenging for the kids and the dye is a mess!  We do apologize to those of you who ended up with stained fingers, knees & shirts.  We can't quite understand how our Sibshoppers get so disastrously messy--but they sure are good at it.

(Look closely and you'll see this poor Sibshopper got a blue tie dye splatter.  He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and walked right by an outrageous squirt! He is a trooper though and let it roll right off his back--and his front, and his face and his arm...) 

 We let our Sibshoppers take their shirts home soaking in dye this time around.  We are really hoping the extra time sitting brought out the bright colors the kids were hoping for.

 Here is one of our awesome facilitators holding up her creation.  You can see she is wearing a t-shirt from years past.  She's hoping for a spiral pattern this time around.

 While kids finished tie dying, other Sibshoppers created "people buttons".  We ended up with some self portraits, demons and aliens!

Then it was time to move to the side yard and start having some fun water time!  We started with an overhead water relay race. Seems simple, grab a cup full of water and pour it over your head into the cup of the person waiting attentively behind you and continue down the line till the last player empties their cup in a large bucket.  At the end of the time limit, the team with the most water in their bucket wins. Again, sounds simple, yet many of our Sibshoppers had a hard time paying attention and missed catching the water in their cup.  Other Sibshoppers had a hard time dumping the water over their heads and ended up with a sopping wet back. And yet, that is where the fun happens!

Sponge relay was up next.  This time you pass a soaking wet sponge to your partner--using only your feet! 

Here is a ridiculously easy and silly water game you can all play as a family.  All it requires is some sort of shallow"ish" pan full of water and few dice.  You simply take turns quickly rolling a die and if you roll a 6, you splash the water in the pan.  Hence the name "Roll 6 and Splash!" You get multiple dice rolling around the circle at the same time and you never quite know when you might end up with a face full of water.

Lunch was a success with many slices of pizza, a huge amount of Capri Sun pouches, carrots with ranch dressing and fruit snacks.  The kids ate quickly as they were itching to get it going on the slip-n-slides! 

Popsicle Perfection!

Friends, fun and food! What a fabulous Summer Celebration!