Awesome Club

We had a great time at Awesome Club today, a social skills program for middle school students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  In general, we try to schedule each day with first, a group activity to promote interaction between the kids (hence, we have a social skills club) followed by an activity of their choice. 
Today, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day by decorating sugar cookies with frosting and green sprinkles.  We also made St. Patrick's Day cards for friends and family members.  After that, we played the name game.  For example, I would say, "My name is Natalie and my favorite color is pink."  Then Sara would say, "This is Natalie and her favorite color is pink.  My name is Sara and my favorite color is purple."  Then Meghan would say, "This is Natalie.  Her favorite color is pink. This is Sara.  Her favorite color is purple.  My name is Meghan..." and so forth until the last person would have to say EVERYONE'S name and favorite color (and later, name and something they like to do).  Some of the kids found this very funny and also a little scary having to remember all of that.  If they couldn't remember, they had to ask a friend to help them out.  After our group activities were over, they had a blast battling it out on Wii.  One of the boys exclaimed, "I cooked him!" after he had one Super Smash Bros.  He was very excited!  This program is a great way to get these kids interacting.  They can practice social skills and learn how to "hang out" like normal teens.  From what I can tell so far, they are having a lot of fun!