Visual Activities and Interventions Related to Holidays
Holidays are an exciting time of year for people all around the world. Whether it is a holiday as popular as Halloween, or as important as earth day, there consistently seems to be a large sum of people who celebrate. This is why I enjoy basing my activities throughout the year on specific holidays.
Since it’s currently August, let’s focus on all the holidays coming up. With September around the corner, themes for my sessions will begin to change over to fall, with Halloween as the big holiday. Activities I have used for this time of year have been listening/singing/dancing to Halloween themed music, providing fall themed visual activities, changing my visuals to have a fall/Halloween theme if using digital, and also providing Halloween themed visual activities. One of the visuals I have includes WH- questions that are inside a candy shaped question bubble that you can peel off and re-stick inside a candy bowl visual when the question has been answered. Any type of physical visual activity like this, whether it’s WH- questions, Would You Rather, or get to know you questions, you can always find new ones that fit the upcoming holiday.
It doesn’t really matter what time of year it is, you can find a way to add a theme to your activities based on a holiday or season that is coming up. For example, I have several clients who enjoy books. I have been collecting books for a while now that are based on different times of year. I have a Christmas themed book, a Halloween themed book, and a Valentine’s day themed book, all of which can be used with a variety of ages and populations.
The visual activities I have have been very helpful, especially in school settings. I have brought a leprechaun building activity and matching game for St. Patrick’s Day. I have used a feed the monster rhythms activity and the above mentioned candy activity for Halloween. I use a recycling bin and garbage bin activity for Earth Day where you have to figure out which pieces of garbage actually go in the trash, etc. It is actually amazing how many visual activities you can find. And coming up with them has been one of my favorite ways to keep my creativity going.
I have also utilized different music based on holidays to dance to or sing to. Something like “Spooky Scary Skeletons” has a silly animated dance that goes with the song. This dance can be adapted to use for a variety of clients. You can use holiday music for song writing, lyrics analysis, guided relaxation, for really anything related to what you might already be doing in your sessions.
I have found that incorporating holiday themes into my work with clients has provided both myself, and my clients, a way to change things up every once in a while. Even some of my clients who need that regularity and similarity, have been open to trying new music or activities based on holidays, especially if they are holidays that they are excited for.
