Communication Building with Pom Pom Launchers

Schools, camps and companies have been using team building and problem solving activities for years to improve communication and relationships. Throughout this year we are incorporating these kinds of tasks into all of our groups, but especially in our pragmatic language groups to help students understand  their own communication strengths and weaknesses. Our hope is to ensure that our students are ready to work within teams in middle school and beyond even when plans don't go as expected. This week the team task was to build a pom pom launcher when only using nonverbal communication. In our supplies list we included a piece of paper and two pencils to see if our students would catch on to the fact that they could write back and forth. The students seem to love the element of surprise when getting a new team task and this week's was no different. The pictures below are a little blurry, but it show the end product for two of our groups. Even without using their voices, they found ways to let others know their ideas.

At the end each team had a conference with either the teacher or Speech Therapist co-teaching to discuss what went well and what was challenging. Most groups had communication break downs, but were able to get something made. It turned out to be a great exercise for students to think about how they interacted within their team. Overall was fun, and the students loved their launchers.