I work with adults with mental retardation and need some ideas for daytime activities.?

I work in a day program with handicapped adults and we are always looking for community activities in which our clients can participate. We have all levels of functioning so all ideas are welcome. Also, if anyone has any simple arts and crafts ideas, I'd appreciate those also.

I know that you have to be careful with the sweets with the mentally challenged but my kids love playing Rollo and Reeces peanut butter cup checkers...

You get to eat what you win!

Walking is a great way to burn off the anxiety and the stress, Relay races, Playing hide and go seek for simple problem solving skills?

We make snowflakes when my kids get sad about something that happened at school... We get out the colored paper and talk and fold and make paper snow...

I love snowflakes and it gives me the oppurtunity to remind them how they are each unique and like no one else in the entire world, how with every different cut into the paper or every different little bump or bruise or joy or experience, we change. Snowflakes are special just as they are... and so is every single person alive...

You can also teach simple science experiemnts and teach the the process of crystalization... Rock candy rocks! We make it all the time.

We also save and plant seeds in the dirt in little dixie cups. It gives them a sense of responsability for another living thing, To care for something and nurture it and watch it gorw every day... and it teaches a skill.

If you plant veggies... you can eat them when you are done!

I helped a girl who had autism and when she came to my house she rode am exercise bike. it made her feel good that she could do that and when she told her mom her mom went out and got her a bike for the house.

Really? Do you call them retards? I don't think so. I think first revise what you learnt on your study about challenging behaviour.
Now painting, sculpture and any other art is great.

car wash,bingo,flea markets

When I worked in DMR group homes I did activities to foster learning so many people could move on to less restrictive environments.
Street Safety- Crosswalks, watch traffic lights change to indicate safe travel, stranger safety, ask police for help if lost.
Banking- How to cash, endorse checks from day program.
Social Skills- How to greet people, proper decorum in restaurants, movies, church-Goal train them to fit into society.

To the above poster "nininha," no one calls people "retards." However, the term "mental retardation" is still sometimes used in the field of psychology as a classification or diagnosis. It is not meant to be stigmatizing, although many people perceive it to be.
These days, individuals with "developmental delays" or "cognitive delays" are other terms that people use. However, they don't often have the levels of specificity associated with the more traditional term of "mental retardation," such as mild, moderate, etc.