Name of Activity:Anger Management Octopus

Type of modality / Anger management/coping skills
Type of play / Shared Cooperative
Interaction pattern / Intra-group
# of participants required / 2 or more
Equipment/supplies / Scissors, pinkconstruction paper, markers, table, chairs
Facilities required/environment / Medium sized, quiet room. Calming environment where participants are able to brainstorm.
Precautions / Be aware that scissors can be harmful and should not be used with certain populations.

Task Analysis

1. Gather materials needed

2. Pick up construction paper and put it on table

3. Pick up marker, as best you can draw an octopus that has 8 tentacles. Leave enough room in each tentacle to write a sentence.

4. Put marker down and pick up scissors

5. Carefully cut out the octopus drawn on the construction paper

6. Put scissors down and discard excess scraps of construction paper, leaving the cut out octopus on the table

7. Think about eight ways you cope with anger

8. Pick up marker and write down one way you cope with anger in each of the eight octopus tentacles

9. Put marker down and discuss with other participant(s) what coping strategies you wrote down

10. Listen/learn ways the other participant(s) cope with anger

11. Once activity if finished clean up by gathering all scissors and markers and putting them back where they came from

Activity Analysis

Category / Skills
Primary body position / Sitting
Part of the body required / Upper body extremities
Movement / Bending, carrying in arms, carrying in hands, palmar grasp, scissor grasp, radial-digital grasp, 3-jaw chuck grasp, pincer grasp, manipulating, picking up, putting down objects, releasing, turning or twisting hands or arms
Physical / Balance: dynamic sitting, balance: static sitting, bilateral integration, crossing midline, fine muscle coordination, flexibility, active range of motion: upper extremities, visual-motor integration
Cognitive / Arousal/alertness, focused attention, sustaining attention, concept formation, concentration, decision making: simple, initiation, insight, judgment, memory: long term, memory: short term, orientation: person, organization and planning, problem solving: simple, reading, recognition: size, spelling, strategy, concrete thought, writing
Social / Conversation: starting, sustaining, and ending, handling criticism, heterogeneity, homogeneity, interpersonal interactions, maintaining social space, regulating behavior, self-expression, social conduct, social cues, showing respect and warmth, showing tolerance
Perception / Auditory function, tactile function, visual function
Communication/language / Reception to spoken language, reception to written language, expression of spoken language, expression of written language
Self-care / N/A
Psychological/emotional (possible) / Joy of learning new ways to cope with anger, anger if thinking about things that anger participant, fear of physical injury when cutting construction paper with scissors, frustration if participant can’t draw/cut out octopus
Ways to SIMPLIFY demands / Ways to make more COMPLEX
Cognitively / Instead of having to write 8 coping strategies down participants can make an octopus with 4 tentacles to simplify cognitive demands. / Have participants not only write down 8 coping strategies but also have them number them in order from 1-8, most effective to least effective.
Physically / Have octopuses already cut before the activity to decrease the physical demand of having to cut out the octopus. / Use larger pieces of paper to draw/cut octopuses to increase both fine muscle coordination as well as gross muscle coordination.
Socially / Make activity into a solitary type of play to simplify the demands of having to converse with others. / Increase amount of conversation between participants by having them find another participant with one of the same coping strategies.

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