Innovative Activity #8: Leisure Boggle

I am currently in RTH 333 which is Therapeutic Recreation and Corrections.  I think that corrections is the hardest population to come up with activities before because of all the rules and restrictions that a therapist would need to abide by.  In prisons, jails or even correctional facilities, there is minimal material that is actually allowed in the facility that isn't considered harmful. Even a wooden spoon could be used to kill somebody and simple household items could be used to make a bomb. 

In my corrections class, a big part of our grade is to work in groups and create therapeutic recreation program following the APIE format; assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation.  We focused on leisure education for our program, taking into consideration of how little leisure inmates have knowledge on.  A lot of times, our jobs as a TRS is to provide them with information and resources so that when they are integrated into society (we help with that too) they will be able to make better choices and stay out of trouble, avoiding re-incarceration. 

I found an activity called Leisure Boggle that would be an awesome ice break and assessment on how much the inmates know about leisure: 

Leisure Boggle
submitted by Kira Paran of alberta health services on April 6, 2009

Size of Group: 2 - fairly unlimited

Equipment: paper, pens, stop watch, alphabet on slips of paper in a container to draw from

Objective: Cooperation, communication, and leisure awareness

Description: In teams, have participants brainstorm positive leisure activities that start with that rounds letter. Each round consists of 1 minute, draw from the container, state the letter, and start the timer. Teams share their answers with the entire group. One point is gained for each answer that no other team wrote down. Note: Game can be played individually.

Debrief: Discussion around the diversity of leisure activities. Can you name one activity you had never heard of? Was there an activity mentioned that you would like to try? Was there an activity mentioned you used to participant in and would like to again?