This activity will partner children with adults , or children with children, in an activity designed to foster communication. The support needed for this activity will depend on the individual and therefore can be made simpler or more complicated. The directions in the instructions is for the basic version. In the optional section, you will find ways to increase or reduce the difficulty. This activity can be played outdoors or indoors. This game can continue as long as you want until social goals have been met or people no longer show interest.
In this “follow-the leader” style game, people will take turns putting either a rock or a stick in a drawn box. The number of the dice will correspond to the total number of items in the box. The goal of this game is to increase social skills by promoting back and forth conversations.
Materials
- Several small rocks
- Small sticks or something similar shape
- Dice
- Piece of paper
- Pencil
Prep work
As preparation for the activity, draw boxes on the paper
Instructions
- Role the dice and write the number in one of the boxes.
Sticks and Stones Activity - Continue until all the boxes have a number.
- One person starts and places either a stick or rock in one of the boxes.
- The next person places the other option, either a stick or a rock, in the box.
- This continues until the box has the correct number of objects
- Next, move onto filling the next boxes using the same process.
- Continue until all the boxes are complete.
Optional
To make it more complicated, you can assign numerical values to the sticks and rocks. For example, a rock can be worth 1 and a stick can be worth 2. So in a box with a value of 3 could have 1 stick and 1 rock or 3 rocks.
Questions to ask during activity
- What comes next, a rock or a stick?
- What box should we put this in?
You can download this activity here: Rocks and Sticks Matching Game
