Winter Olympics committee? We have a new game to suggest…

January 10, 2018 BY Renee Limon

The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea will soon be upon us this February. Not only will we see amateur sports competitors at the top of their games performing in spectacular feats on snow and ice, we’ll also see new and obscure sports that we’ve never heard of before, such as curling and skeleton (I did not make this up), and the inspiring back-stories of how much practice, dedication and work it takes for athletes to get to the Olympics.

Taking inspiration from the upcoming winter games, and having an odd bit of time on our hands, our clinicians opted not to catch up on paperwork and report writing, but to create an entirely new winter game: blind-folded collaborative faux-snow making. In case you were wondering, this was Jenny’s idea. She’s our director of shenanigans, often finding creative ways we can grow, stretch and laugh.

First up, we needed volunteers. Sarah, Alice, and Jenny were all game. Christina, our OT, was then tasked with giving step-by-step instructions on how to make faux snow out of baking soda and hair conditioner. The blindfolds were added to make it more of a trust exercise, and to increase the messiness factor.

Each clinician measured baking soda into their neighbor’s Ziploc bag. The next part was a little bit messy, as they measured and added two spoons of hair conditioner.

After that, our intrepid snowmakers got to decide if their concoction was snow-like yet. Some added more baking soda to make it more crumbly. Others needed more conditioner if their snow seemed too dry.

In the end, it was decided that Alice’s snow came out the best. All of our participants were able to build a tiny snow person out of their faux snow.

Do we think our new game is ready for prime-time Olympics? Nope. But we laughed a lot and made a cute snow person without getting cold or needing any real snow. Gold medals all around for being such good sports!

Oh. And. Making faux snow is our January messy art project for our clients, too! Hopefully your child will have as much fun with it as we did.