Christmas is a crazy time of year for the majority of us, in the past few years, I would say it’s probably taken over our lives – it’s everywhere you turn. But, what does that mean for individuals who are diagnosed with Autism?
There are many reasons that Christmas can be hard for many of our individuals with Autism. In class, we try and get to know our students in Sept-Nov, so that we know what we can/can’t do in December.
We look at how our students respond to changes. This includes changes in routine, noises lighting, visitors, surprises etc.
Thankfully, we’ve never had any major meltdowns over Christmas. We have had a few small ones, but with a couple of changes are students are back to themselves. It’s important to ensure you have a good relationship with your students – and their families. Christmas means lots of changes and they may be fine in school – but they may be bottling up at taking it home instead.
So, what activities do we do to celebrate Christmas in our classroom? (Note, this is for the whole of December – December is totally Christmas orientated in our classroom!)
- We all have a Christmassy themed breakfast together. This is a great way for us to encourage our students to work on their life and social skills.
- We all get to open up a door on our class advent calendar and have a treat each – this is great for us to work on number skills too.
- In our school, we all have Christmas dinner together in the hall. However, this can be quite overwhelming for some of our students. So, we take out some bits to help us stay calm. We also make fun placemats to distract our children. There are Christmas crackers, teddy and ear defenders. We also have an iPad as our last back up. This isn’t ideal, but if it gets our students involved in Christmas Dinner, it works wonders. We find that each year it gets a little easier for them, before long they can sit without needing toys etc.
- Santa comes and visits our students. We buy the presents for our students, so we know that it will be something they like. Santa comes to each of the individual classes so that we don’t have to wait long. Some of our students like to watch Santa from a distance. Over the years, they become more confident and approach him then.
- We always go on a Christmas class trip. We visit Santa and we go for lunch as a class. Our students LOVE this day – and staff do too! It’s something we really look forward to each year. One of us always phone the venues and book in advance. We explain any particular needs and the venues are great at adapting to help us.
- We adapt our discos to suit our students needs and is a whole school activity. If students can’t cope with a disco, we have alternative activities on for them to go around. These are usually sensory play, outdoor play or a Christmas movie.
- Each class makes something to sell at the Christmas Fair. This is a great way for us to introduce a bit of ‘Enterprise’ into our classroom.
Christmas themed activities.
We link our activities to the curriculum and IEP targets. Below you can find some examples.
- Counting how many stockings are on the fireplace.
- Fine motor activities.
- Science experiments.
- Christmas sensory trays etc.
- Crime scene. We always have a ‘crime scene’ activity for Christmas. Our students LOVE being detectives – this year was who has stolen Santa? (It was the Grinch!) We adapted our crime scenes and the clues are more like puzzles for them to solve and find the culprit. Our first clue was something to smell. And that is what the culprits favourite smell is! We have a clue for each sense, making it a great sensory activity. We finished off with filming the Grinch stealing Santa and had our students watch it! It was so much fun.
- Art activities.These are great for so many different skills. We always make sure to make some that can they can use to decorate their homes. This also gives their families something to remember.
- Cooking. We love cooking in our class! Our students are more willing to try new foods when it’s something that they have helped to make.
- We bring in our slow cookers and make slow cooked hot chocolate – if you haven’t tried it – do it, it’s amazing! The children love sitting down with us and drinking their hot chocolate. We also offer marshmallows and we watch Christmas songs on Youtube.
So, how do you celebrate Christmas in your class? Do your students enjoy it?
