Extracurricular Clubs
Clubs, art, recreation, school activities, and enrichment experiences help students discover interests, build confidence, connect with peers, and belong.
What This Means for Your Child
- Explore interests and strengths
- Build friendships around shared activities
- Practice social skills naturally
- Experience a fuller school community
School should be more than academics.
Students need opportunities to have fun, explore their interests, spend time with peers, and experience the parts of school that help create friendships and memories.
At A-FITS, our after-school extracurricular clubs are intentionally built around socialization, shared interests, and fun.
Rather than asking students to participate in a generic social-skills group, we give them opportunities to choose activities they are genuinely interested in and connect with other students who enjoy the same things.
Interests Create Connection
For many students with autism, traditional social situations can feel forced or uncomfortable.
Starting a conversation just for the purpose of “socializing” can be difficult.
But when two students already share an interest, the conversation has somewhere to begin.
LEGO. Pokémon. Video games. Art. Sports. Gardening. STEM. Theatre.
Those shared interests create a natural reason for students to spend time together, communicate, cooperate, laugh, and begin building relationships.
Our goal is simple: help students find something they enjoy—and hopefully find someone who enjoys it with them.
Student Choice Matters
Students are encouraged to choose clubs based on their own interests.
That matters because students are more likely to participate, communicate, and connect when the activity already means something to them.
A student who loves building may choose LEGO or STEM Club. A student interested in creativity may choose Art or Theatre. Another student may connect through gaming, gardening, dance, yearbook, or sports.
The activity becomes the bridge. The relationship is what can grow from it.
Clubs Rotate Throughout the Year
A-FITS has offered a wide variety of after-school clubs, and club options can rotate throughout the school year based on student interests, participation, staffing, and campus availability.
Past and potential clubs include LEGO Club, Pokémon Club, Video Game Club, STEM Club, Art Club, Theatre Club, Hip Hop Dance Club, Gardening Club, Yearbook Club, Competitive Sports, Leisure Sports, and other student-interest clubs.
Rotating clubs gives students opportunities to explore something new while also allowing popular clubs to return so more students have a chance to participate.
Social Skills Without Making Everything a Social-Skills Lesson
Clubs naturally create many of the same opportunities we want students to develop through social instruction.
Students may practice starting conversations, taking turns, sharing materials, working as a team, handling winning and losing, asking peers questions, joining an activity, compromising, problem-solving, managing frustration, encouraging others, and building friendships.
But the difference is that these skills are being practiced while students are doing something they actually want to do.
A student may not be thinking, “I am practicing reciprocal communication.” They may simply be talking to another student about Pokémon.
And that is exactly the point.
Friendship Can Start With One Common Interest
Not every friendship begins with an introduction.
Sometimes it begins with sitting next to someone who is building the same LEGO set. Joining the same game. Painting together. Working on a STEM project. Practicing a dance. Talking about the same character.
A-FITS clubs create more opportunities for those moments to happen.
We cannot manufacture friendship. But we can create an environment where students have more chances to find their people.