August 2023

Welcome to our August 2023 Sibshop!

For our trickle in activity, we enjoyed making some home made Kool Aid Playdough. 

It's a messy process with lots of sticky fingerfuls of dough when you first start, but with a fair amount of elbow grease and lots of kneading, you end up with some spectacularly smooth playdough.

After our traditional Welcome & Introductions we got busy moving by playing a fun, active game called "Triangle Tag." Three players create a triangle with one target who is identified by a red bandana. Then a fourth player is it and has to tag the target. The triangle continues to hold hands and moves to protect the target. Triangle Tag gets the heart beating and laughter ensues!

We tried a new discussion activity today called "Emotion Uno." It's a traditional game of Uno but when colors are changed you share something with the group. If you change the color to Red you share a time when you felt upset or mad about your sibling with special needs. With Blue you share about a time of sadness, yellow is happiness,  green is jealousy and wild lets you choose.

After more than a year, we brought back a Sibshop classic with our Laser Maze activity. We don't have the budget for real lasers but crepe paper does the trick. Our Sibshoppers are flexible, athletic and well coordinated!

Lunch was up next and we chatted about all our favorite music. I am looking forward to updating our playlist with some fun, uplifting music our Sibshoppers recommended.

Our last activity for the day was "Popcorn and a Movie". We made a delicious popcorn mix with chocolate, pretzels and more and then settled in to watch a great video about siblings. The video spurred lots of conversation with our expert siblings.

You can check out the video by clicking the link below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvXUkZoHuCI

We are looking forward to seeing you all in September.

JULY SIBSHOP CANCELLED

 Dear friends of Sibshops,

We will NOT be holding a workshop in July 2023. We hope to see you in August!

Thanks!

June 2013

 Welcome to our June Sibshop.

Our trickle in activity is called "Action Art". We all got to work coloring large pieces of an interlocking puzle. We weren't exactly sure what we would end up with.  It was an adventure to color and piece it all together. 

We spent a little time reconnecting and meeting new friends as we went through our Rules & Expectations. Then it was outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and get the blood and brain pumping with a super fun Relay Race.

Ring Toss was up first!

Cup stacking was a lot more challenging than our Sibshoppers might have anticipated. You only get to use one hand and have to keep going till you find the odd colored cup on the bottom of your stack.

Golfing with the fly swatter was most definitely harder than the Sibshoppers anticipated. 😉

Cheerio Stacking (again, with one only one hand) proved challenging and tested our Sibshoppers dexterity.

Frisbee Golf was the last of our relay activities. 

After all the exertion we came in for a quiet game of "Memory". We had about three minutes to memorize what objects were on the memory platter before they were taken out of sight. You know what they say about out of sight, out of mind. The task was to remember and create a list with as many items as you could remember from platter.

Lunch was much needed and appreciated after all the fun and games. Although there tend to be some fun and games at lunch as well!

Feelings on a rope gave our Sibshoppers the chance to tell us how they felt about certain things like pepperoni on their pizza or having to babysit their sibling. What do you think about attending the same school as your sibling? They placed themselves along the rope on a scale of 1 to 10 to represent their feelings.

A frantic game of Hula Hoop Showdown followed. No photos were taken as we were way to busy rock, paper, scissoring it and hopping to victory.

See you next time!

May 2023

 April Showers bring May flowers. We had some great weather today for our May Sibshop. It was nice to get to feel the sun on our faces!

We started with a little STEM activity and created a couple different varieties of paper flying machines. Helicopters might be the right word.

We climbed the stairs and let them fly from the second floor balcony. It was fun to watch their descent and see which way the wind might take them. We did a lose a couple to the wind as they were carried down into the basement window wells. 

 

We followed our crafting and flying with a welcome and introductions as well as a review of our expectations and consequences. Seems like we have at least one or two new Sibshoppers with us each month. We love making new friends.

Tic Tac Toe Relay was up next on the agenda. The rules remain the same for a basic game of Tic Tac Toe but this time you work as a team and have to run a distance to place your marker on the board. The exertion and working as a team rather than independently sometimes throws a wrench into the works.

 

We enjoyed the warm weather and the shade of nearby trees when we gathered to do "Wheel of Feelings". You toss a bean bag onto the wheel and then share a time you felt that emotion in regards to your sibling with special needs. We are grateful for these sibs who are vulnerable and willing to share their personal experiences to help support one another.

"Boom Clap Snatch" was a great little activity as we eagerly awaited the delivery of our pizza lunch. It's a silly and fast game that surprisingly works your brain, your fine motor skills and your reflexes!

We had some hungry Sibshoppers and they devoured pizza and strawberries and Capri Suns for lunch in record time. Yummy! We decided to craft a special treat this month and each Sibshopper become their own personal pastry chef. 

Then we got back to the work of having some non food fun and played a few rounds of "Scrabble Scramble."  Each team is given a set of alphabet letters (with a few extra) and then given a category to find a response to. You get points for being the first team to complete a word and you get a point for having the longest (correctly spelled) word. Its a mad dash to choose a word, find your letters and get organized as a team to try and secure a point.

 

We wrapped the workshop up by playing a game of 
"Categories". I was too busy trying to think of names of Disney movies, colors, and animals to be able to take any photos. Crazy how your mind can blank when under the pressure of not repeating something that has already been said by your opponent! 

We really enjoyed our May Sibshop. See you in June for some summer fun!

April 2023

 We started off our April 2023 Sibshop by creating some "Snazzy Snakes" with pipe cleaners, perler beads, googly eyes and a little hot glue.  The kids devoted a lot of their creative energy to getting the pattern just how they wanted.   

                    

                                      

 Look at these super silly, snazzy snakes! We had a lot of funny creating something fun!

Following our Welcome and Introductions, we played another few rounds of "Color Guard." It was a favorite from last time and the kids love playing it so we were back at it again this month. The color guard calls out a color and all those players holding an egg that color try and get in the basket before being tagged out. 

Last month our Sibshoppers created some "Book Talk" videos where they shared a review about books with a special needs theme. Those videos are still being produced but we were able to watch the first cuts together. Then we read another book together in small groups and talked about what they meant to us.

Lunch was followed by a ridiculously fun partner game of "Huckle Buckle!" 

Partners race to complete the Huckle Buckle instruction before the other teams. The last team is out of the round. 

We wrapped up our Sibshop by completing a "Sound Off" handout. Sibshoppers get to share something good, bad or so-so about having a sibling with special needs. 

We are looking forward to May and hopefully some warmer weather.