Loooooong Activities # 1!

Tonight was the first night of our final projects---our "Long Activities." Groups 1-3 presented tonight. Group 1's topic was art. They did a great job facilitating their project of creating a scrapbook out of an old book with many different creative and decorative elements! Group 2's topic was "Team-building/Challenge Activities." They did three different group activities that definitely challenged all of us! My group was the last group that presented on our topic of music. We did different rhythm activities, made musical instruments and also incorporated body awareness into our project!


They all were a lot of fun to participate in, and I feel like I have learned a lot about how to plan and facilitate different TR programs. After experiencing all of the projects tonight, the main question we are left with was, "SO WHAT?"
What do all of these activities tell us about how to become a better TR specialist?


One of the main things I have gained from these projects so far is seeing just how broad the field of TR is! There are many guidelines that are important to follow in TR, but there are endless ways to change up the activity to fit different populations and different groups of individuals. For any number of goals/objectives for a client, there are at least double if not infinite ways to reach those goals! I have learned that there is never just one way to do things in the wonderful world of TR!


Another important thing I picked up on from experiencing these projects is how versatile you have to be. Even if you have a certain thing planned out exactly how you want it, 99.9% of the time it is not going to go just as you wanted it to. I have learned this from working at a summer camp with kids for the past 5 years. I have learned that you need to overplan activities and plan for them to go differently than you originally decided. The main thing is to just go with it!!!! As long as the main goal/point is being reached, go where the group goes. If they want to spend more time on something or if the activity takes a completely different direction than you thought, let them do it.  If they are enjoying themselves and getting something out of it, the number one thing is to

just go with the flow!!!!! :)