Top 3 Fun Special Needs Activities
Who doesn’t love to have fun? We know that from working with the special needs population that they love fun! That’s why we wanted to include some fun special needs activities that are fun, and you can do almost anywhere – and they won’t even realize they are exercising! Here are the top three fun special needs activities that we use with our clients.
1.) Cone Drills
There are so many different fun special needs activities that you can do with these cones. The first one we do is set up matching cones across the room. We have our participants start at one end of the cone and give them commands to run, skip, jump, and hop to the other cone. To engage their brain, we will have them touch the cone with certain fingers or perform an exercise over the cone. As an example, Joe starts on cone A and hops over to cone B. When Joe gets to side B, he must squat down and touch the cone with all five fingers on his left hand. After doing this, he must hop back to cone A. You can get creative here, and everyone loves it! We buy our cones on Amazon and use the 50-Pack Kevenz 2 inch High Soccer disc Cones, Multicolor Cone for Agility Training, Soccer, Football, Kids, Field Marker.
2.) Dancing
The special needs population are some of the best dancers in town. When it comes to dancing, they have no shame, and anything goes! Crank up some dance music and watch them go. Here are some good dance songs that you can try:
- Uptown Funk by Kidz Bop Kids
- Cupid Shuffle – Cupid Shuffle DJ’s
- Macarena – Macarena Party
- Electric Slide – Electric Slide Party
Add functional movements to the dancing to make it even more of a workout. There is also an amazing organization called Powered 2 Move that hosts dance classes for special needs – check them out and consider trying their classes. They are free and have many other fun special needs activities.
3.) Agility Ladder
We’ve talked about the speed agility in a previous blog post titled top three exercise equipment for special needs. The agility ladder is fun and builds confidence faster than any exercise because participants can see improvement quickly. Here are a few speed agility ladder exercises to try at home:
- Walk or Run – One Foot Per Rung
- Bunny Hop (Hop with both feet in each rung)
- Two Feet In, Two Feet Out Jump
- Lateral Hop – Two Feet Per Rung
- Single-Leg Variations
As you can see, there are many fun special needs activities that you can do while promoting exercise. These are all inexpensive and can be done in the comfort of your own home. We encourage parents to get active with their kids to set an example and encourage them in this lifestyle.