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Albany students enjoy ‘Lunch Bunch’
albany lunch bunch 2
Albany Elementary School students, from left, Cash Brewer, Kamden Broughton and Timothy Stutzman have some fun making a “snowman” indoors during “Lunch Bunch.”

By: Savanna Nettesheim

Elementary Special Education Teacher

ALBANY — In the elementary special education classroom, we have a fantastic opportunity to work on social skill building by having a “Lunch Bunch.” This is an opportunity for the students to bring a friend every week to the classroom to eat lunch and play social skill building games. This allows the students to not only build on their social skills, but additionally build new friendships with fellow peers. Students really enjoy their time spent down in the classroom on Fridays. This year, the students have enjoyed playing card games, emotions bingo, board games, as well as, craft projects. 


albany lunch bunch 1
From left, Albany Elementary School students Timothy Stutzman, Mylee Calvert, Kamden Broughton, Cash Brewer, Douglas Day and Tre Miller have some fun crafting during “Lunch Bunch.”

Before winter break, students wanted to do a fun team building activity as well as a craft project. 

Therefore, we came up with the idea to build a snowman, in which the students teamed up and picked a friend to wrap in toilet paper to make them look like a snowman. After the students wrapped their friend up in the paper, they needed to add the accessories needed to look like a snowman. The first group to finish first won that race. 

The students had lots of laughs and excitement making their friends look like a snowman. After we played two rounds of this, we were able to make a fun Grinch project out of paper, paper towel rolls and cotton balls. The students looked out and helped one another as we were making our Grinch. 

With an opportunity such as this, the students have fun and strengthen their social skills at once. I am delighted to continue the “Lunch Bunch” within the coming years.