Stocking Stuffer Therapy Activity
This therapy activity is great to use with large or small groups and students of all ages! It’s also very portable and needs just a few inexpensive materials. Your students will be asking to do this over and over!
What you need:
- a Christmas stocking for each team
- a large spoon for each team
- small items for the students to place on their spoons (e.g., jingle bells, pom poms, plastic beads or buttons)
- hangers for the stockings (optional)
What to do:
- If you are going to hang the stockings, do this ahead of time. Removable hooks, like Command brand hooks, are good for this. (If you aren’t hanging them, a student will hold the stocking.)
- During your session, have the students earn items to use in the activity either individually or as a team.
- Divide your students into teams and place each team’s items together on a table. Make sure each team has the same number of items, adding some if necessary.
- Have the students line up by team and stand behind a line across from the stockings. Have a student from each team hold the stocking if you’re not hanging them.
- Give a spoon to the student in the front of the line.
- When you say to go, the students with the spoons will scoop up as many of their team’s items as possible on the spoon, walk them across the room, and put them in the stockings. (If you have students holding the stockings, the students with the spoons will then hold the stockings and send the spoons back with the students who were holding the stockings. These students will then go to the back of the line. If your stockings are hung, the students with the spoons will go back, hand the spoon to the person in front of the line, and then go to the back of the line.)
- The next student in line gets the spoon, scoops up as many items as possible, takes them to the stocking and puts them in.
- This continues until one team has gotten all of their items into their stocking.
Tips & Options:
- You can decide how to handle dropped items. You can let students pick them up and keep going or have them go back to the beginning and start again.
- It shouldn’t really matter if have an odd number of students on a team since the lines just keep rotating through. Some students may get more turns, however.
- Take into consideration the size of your items when picking your spoons. You can use soups spoons, serving spoons, or even ladles if it will help all of your students participate. Make sure your students aren’t able to scoop up too many items in each turn so that everyone gets at least one turn and so that the activity last longer.